Joe Campana might be best known as a successful Colorado Springs restauranteur and businessman, but he’s also a pool player at heart.

The owner or co-owner of Bonny and Read Seafood, the Rabbit Hole, the SuperNova arcade, Cork & Cask wine and whiskey bar and STIR Coffee & Cocktails, among others, said he played in pool tours on the East Coast in the 1990s and even qualified for pool’s U.S. Amateur Open. He also played competitively in Las Vegas and more recently played an event in Wyoming.

During a nine-year stint at the Phantom Canyon Brewing Co. in downtown Colorado Springs, Campana also worked as the bar and restaurant’s house pro — cleaning and maintaining its second- floor pool tables and giving lessons, among other duties.

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Now, Campana and his Cork & Cask partner Lucas Frye — who’s a self-described pool amateur — plan to bring an upscale pool hall to downtown Colorado Springs.

They’ve leased the recently vacated Tattered Cover bookstore space at 112 N. Tejon St. and have targeted May 1 for the opening of The Crooked Cue, a roughly 9,300-square-foot venue that will offer six to eight electronic dartboards and shuffleboard to go with 17 pool tables.

The Crooked Cue also will have a bar, food — pizza, wings and fries — and a mezzanine for private parties; Campana’s general manager at SuperNova, Meagan Ohmes, also will partner on the project and run the new venue, he said.

“There’s nothing downtown to do,” Campana said. “I’m tired of opening up, kind of, bars at this point. I want to bring something downtown for people to do. And there’s nothing really like that in this town.”

A pool hall has been a dream of his since he moved to the Springs in 1999, Campana said. At one time, he considered a location in the 500 block of South Tejon Street.

Campana said he’s sought space large enough to accommodate multiple pool tables along with food and amenities to make the concept work.

More recently, he eyed the Tejon Street space that was once the home of Zeezo’s costume and magic shop and the Bryan & Scott Jewelers, but instead opened the Shrunken Head tiki bar next door at 114 N. Tejon in February 2022.

Meanwhile, the Denver-based Tattered Cover bookstore chain expanded to Colorado Springs, leased the 112 N. Tejon space and opened a few months later in June of that year. After less than 1½ years, however, financially troubled Tattered Cover shuttered in October.

Tattered Cover’s arrival, albeit relatively brief, proved to be a financial help to his pool hall concept, Campana said.

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The Tejon Street space, owned by local real estate company The Baldwin Cohn Group, was built out to accommodate the bookstore. That saved him $800,000 to $1 million in costs to upgrade the space, though he’s still investing $600,000 worth of improvements and equipment into the building, Campana said.

“It’s move-in ready. It’s turn key,” he said.

Pool has soared in popularity, while darts is one of the nation’s fastest-growing sports, Campana said. The Crooked Cue will host dart leagues and he also hopes to attract professional pool tournaments to the Springs.

The venue will have 10, 7-foot Diamond Pro-Am tables and seven, 9-foot Diamond Pro-Ams, Campana said. Professionals play on the larger tables, while the smaller ones typically are found in bars, he said.

Hannah Campana, Joe’s wife, said the couple sees potential in The Crooked Cue as a downtown gathering spot. They envision it with large leather chairs and velvet curtains to help create a venue with a cozy feeling.

“Especially for people that are just going out to dinner and want to hang out and do something else besides drinking,” Hannah said. “City Rock (a downtown rock-climbing attraction) is something to do, but not many people are ready to go rock climbing after a nice dinner.

“We more so want to target people who are looking for something to extend their evening, that isn’t just sitting around in a bar that allows them to have some sort of interaction that’s fun,” she said. “It will be a great first date spot, too, something to break the ice a little bit, to loosen people up, to give them some sort of activity to do while getting to know each other.”

Frye, Campana’s Cork & Cask partner, said they expect The Crooked Cue will attract more than just pool players.

“It’s not just a bar or a lounge,” Frye said. “It’s a place to hang out where you can actually have some activities to do something besides just sit at the bar and watch TV. We’re going to make the front area ‘loungey’ and very accessible to people that, even if they don’t want to play pool or are not into pool, it will still be a place for them to hang out and enjoy themselves along with some friends.”

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