Olhausen Gamerooms and Outdoors

wroom floor today seems nearly identical to watching Jerry, Butch and Donny—his grandfather, dad and uncle—back in the day. As the third generation child tagged to manage the family business, Brian, like his dad and uncle before him, started by tagging along since he, too, was a kid. As youngsters growing up in New Mexico in the Fifties, Butch and Donny Olhausen tagged along with their dad, Jerry, and watched him set up, repair and re-cover pool tables. Their dad always had a shop in the house and they’d listen to him there while he was working—learning, assimilating and then, doing. By the end of high school, the boys could fix just about anything on any pool table. In the summer of 1969, Butch moved to San Diego and was followed a few years later by his brother. That’s when the boys started their own company moving, repairing and re-covering older tables. As a side gig, they delivered new tables for the owner of a small manufacturing company. They charged $12 to deliver and install a new table, using Butch’s classic ’59 El Camino and paying for their own gas. Normally, they’d complete deliveries by midmorning. Then, they would go out and pound the pavement for any more work they could find. Then came what they thought was a great opportunity. The owner of the manufacturing company offered to sell them his business for $1,000 cash and the inventory note. The boys pooled everything they had and bought the company lock, stock and barrel. That’s when the world changed for them. As teens, Butch and Donny had noticed just how poorly the tables they repaired were built. While out on repairs, they’d discuss how they could fix them better. And now, boom! They realized they could, and should, build a better table than anyone else.

“Oh, what the hey!” Butch said. “Let’s just build the best table in the world.”

The company they bought was making 35 tables annually. The first year, their goal was to somehow double the business and sell 70 tables. Business was good. Within two years, they were selling 300. Year after year, Donny built the tables while Butch managed the business. And they continued to make improvements. They hand-picked Grade I slow-growth hardwoods from the northeast; mined 1” thick diamond honed slate from Italy and South America; stabilized the table with a massive Uniliner® frame; and upgraded nuts, bolts, screws, wires and tensions. Still, one improvement eluded them: incorporating a rubber cushion that never dried or cracked. Balls always rebounded poorly when that happened. So, they worked on bettering it. And after each unsuccessful version, they created new adjustments. Finally, after years of left turns, they found the right mix. They patented their invention and the Olhausen Accu-Fast® 100% pure gum rubber cushion was born. It would play true and evenly for-nearly-ever while never cracking or drying. Time marched on. Building 35 indoor pool tables a year became 300; three hundred became 3,000; and three thousand became thirty thousand! And Jerry’s gift to his two sons–a lifelong trade for each–became a career for hundreds of other boys as a local mom-and-pop morphed into an internationally acclaimed mom-and-pop. Today, Tuesday morning, fifty years later, there’s Brian on the floor demonstrating Uncle Donny’s tables from what once was Butch’s retail store in San Diego. Brian owns it now. Listening to Brian lovingly describe what’s inside each table illustrates what three generations of ‘tender, loving care’ and brainpower have built, revised and refined…a thing of beauty. Today, Olhausen Billiards Manufacturing, Inc., builds its pool, shuffleboard, foosball and air hockey tables from a 250,000 square foot factory in Portland, Tennessee, just outside Nashville. Still family-owned and operated, Butch and his family and Donny and his team at the plant, continue their pursuit of quality, service, selection and long-term value. These attributes and three generations of success have earned the company the title of “The Best in Billiards.”

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