Slide on Down- The Shuffleboards are in town!

With London’s Shuffleboard craze now in full swing The Games Room Company has been called upon to create bespoke branded tables for some of the capital’s hottest new Sports bars.

If you haven’t heard of Shuffleboard then you’re clearly hanging out with the wrong crowd, because whilst the name might conjure up visions of dreary pub games or sedate afternoons on the poop deck of a geriatric cruise, the game itself is anything but dull.

Best known in the USA, the country that invented it, Shuffleboard is in fact a hugely entertaining game requiring great skill and judgement along with occasional bouts of aggression, although only when appropriate of course!

Whilst we brits were fiddling around with ‘Shove Ha’penny’ in the dark corners of country pubs, the yanks were playing a game which worked on similar principles but on a much grander scale. (well they would, wouldn’t they?) With tables ranging from 12ft to 22ft long, Shuffleboard needs one thing above of all else - space! This probably explains why it’s taken us so long to find out what we’ve been missing all these years, but with large open-plan entertaining spaces now very much in vogue, both in the home and in hospitality areas of bars, hotels and clubs, this is a game whose time has finally come. Check out The Games Room Company's range of shuffleboards here.

The action takes place on a large wooden slab which runs almost the length of the table, with a run-off area of a few inches at either end. It’s surface is covered in a clear, rock hard epoxy which dries to a high gloss finish and is then sprinkled with tiny silicon balls so small that they resemble grains of sand. The steel pucks, which are typically about 2.5 “ across, glide across this surface with such little resistance that first time players are invariably caught unawares, sending the puck skimming right off the end of the playfield at speed. It’s as if they’re sliding on ice, which explains how the game can be played on tables as long as 22ft. High scores are achieved by getting your pucks into the zones nearest the end of the board, and the game can be played individually or in teams.

In the last few weeks we have built at least 5 of these behemoths for London bars, including The Burdock at the newly opened Montcalm Hotel in Finsbury Square and The Greenwood at Nova Victoria. By applying custom graphics to the timber playfield before pouring the clear epoxy we have been able to introduce the client’s corporate branding to the tables, and the finished results are spectacular.

The latest edition, again custom built by our own craftsmen, incorporates removable wooden tops which allow it to be used as a work station during the day, complete with USB charging sockets.

Why not slide on down to Finsbury Square and check it out?