Steinway Billiards Abruptly Closes After Extra Than Three Many years

“We’re a devastating results of the pandemic,” says the handwritten be aware outdoors of Steinway Cafe-Billiards. The enduring Astoria pool corridor shuttered abruptly final Thursday, simply two days after a key choice in a two-years-long lawsuit over tens of hundreds of {dollars} in missed pandemic-era hire funds by the enterprise.

“I’m going by means of the 5 phases of grief,” mentioned Athena Mennis, a normal supervisor who began there as a waitress 22 years in the past, and got here in Wednesday morning to be instructed — together with 10 different workers — that she had misplaced her job. 

Whereas some patrons realized of their hang-out’s closure from the be aware Mennis wrote and taped to the glass outdoors, others came upon from the pool corridor’s Instagram publish Wednesday saying “with nice disappointment and shock” that it might be the final day for the sport room and bar that opened in 1990.

One consumer shared recollections of a primary date there in 1993, whereas others shared recollections of pool and chess video games they’d performed within the corridor. 

“That’s actually unhappy,” commented pool professional Fedor Gorst. “That was my first pool room that I visited in US once I was 14 or 15. I cherished that place.” 

One other commenter, Paul Taylor, lamented studying about “the closure of one other billiards membership,” including that it “jogs my memory once more of how I felt when my native membership closed for the final time and is now residence to a gymnasium.”

Courtesy of Athena Mennis

In its 33 years, the billiards cafe has been the house of Earl Strickland, who served because the in-house professional between 2011 to 2018 and was thought of top-of-the-line nine-ball gamers of all time. Different notable gamers together with Efren Reyes, Shane Van Boening and Ronnie O’Sullivan have additionally graced the match tables on the household enterprise that operated out of a low-key block on Astoria’s bustling Steinway Avenue.

The neighborhood mainstay has additionally been a favourite gathering place for Greeks in Astoria and past. When THE CITY visited final yr, longtime patrons entertained one another over video games of pool or Greek backgammon, bantering with employees over $3 coffees between rounds within the method of outdated buddies.

A Queens choose first dominated in December of final yr {that a} warrant could be issued for the pool corridor’s eviction because of about $440,000 owed by the enterprise in again hire since March 2020, in keeping with court docket paperwork. However an enchantment course of stalled the eviction for about six months following the court docket choice, till a choose final Tuesday declined a movement from the enterprise asking the landlords to indicate trigger.

‘We All Grew Up Collectively’

Talking to THE CITY on Monday, a number of longtime workers shared emotions of loss and confusion over the pool corridor’s closure, in addition to worries over their future. All mentioned that they had anticipated that any closure could be postponed for at the least a couple of extra months because the court docket case dragged on, and as that they had hoped for a fortunate break.

Luisa Patino, 37, had been again on the job for under three days after a three-month sick depart for breast most cancers when she came upon that the enterprise was closing.

“I really feel numerous melancholy. It’s fairly unhappy,” mentioned Patino, who has labored on the pool corridor for 13 years. “As a result of I do know the folks [a] very long time, and since he closed and he instructed me the identical day.”

Courtesy of Athena Mennis

Different members of the workers echoed Patino’s sentiment, saying they wished proprietor Georgiois “George” Nikolakakos would have given advance discover so they might have began in search of new jobs. 

That features 32-year-old Jana Tellez, a single mom who has labored on the billiards cafe since she was 15. Although, like most of the employees, she additionally emphasised her closeness with different staffers in addition to with Nikolakakos, including that she needs him no ailing will regardless of the sudden closure that has left her and others in limbo.

“George’s like one other dad to me, as bizarre because it sounds … I don’t even suppose he understood half the issues that had been occurring, you realize, it wasn’t even him coping with the courts,” Tellez mentioned. “I don’t blame him. I’m not gonna say who I blame however I simply don’t blame him.”

Andres, a 34-year-old prepare dinner from Ecuador, additionally mentioned he was anxious about how he was going to discover a job with the closure of the place as a consequence of his immigration standing. He started working on the pool corridor as a busboy when he was 17. 

“All of us grew up collectively over there,” mentioned Andres, who realized to play Greek backgammon on the pool corridor when he was 22 years outdated.

“He performed backgammon with all of the outdated males and beat them out on a regular basis,” Mennis, the supervisor, chimed in. She chuckled: “They’d all get mad at him.”

Nikolakakos and his daughter, Anna, who helps run the enterprise, couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.

Within the meantime, Mennis has arrange a GoFundMe hoping to scrape collectively a sum to assist help the workers as they search for their subsequent gigs.

The aim, she mentioned, is to boost about $2,000 for every former worker to assist them cowl upcoming payments and get again on their ft throughout what she calls “the slowest season for hospitality workers.”

Recalling the workers and prospects’ final night time on the pool corridor on Wednesday, Tellez famous how “everyone sat there and cried — and drank.”

“And I labored my ass off all night time,” mentioned Mennis. 

“I had fun saying goodbye — not a superb time, however a bittersweet time,” she continued. “The people who I’ve met there I’ve identified my entire life…  I simply know I’m gonna lose contact with the vast majority of the people who I’ve spent my teenage years and grownup years understanding.”