Questions & answers
Most people arrive here describing the place rather than naming it—a big pool hall on Indian School Road, open all night, gone now. These are the questions that bring them, answered as plainly as the record allows.
The Golden 8 Ball. It opened around 1980 at Indian School Road and Grand Avenue, then moved in 1986 to 2740 West Indian School Road near 27th Avenue. At 16,800 square feet with 40 Brunswick Gold Crown tables, it was the largest pool hall in the United States. It ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and was open to all ages.
The first Golden 8 Ball was at Indian School Road and Grand Avenue in Phoenix, in the Price Club Plaza. It was roughly 8,000 square feet. When the lease ended, David Lee moved the room to a much larger space at 2740 West Indian School Road in 1986.
From 1986 until the mid-1990s, that was the Golden 8 Ball — a 16,800-square-foot, 40-table pool hall open around the clock. The building was eventually razed. Nothing marks the site today.
It closed in the mid-1990s after several years of decline. The neighborhood around 27th Avenue and Indian School Road deteriorated through the early 1990s, and the wider industry was under pressure — video arcades pulled younger crowds, tighter DUI enforcement kept people home, anti-smoking laws changed indoor gathering places, and a recession thinned discretionary spending. Violence in and around the hall brought police crackdowns. The building was later demolished.
Yes. Shootings in and around the hall contributed to the police attention that preceded its closing. On New Year's Eve 1994, a patron known as "Old Man Bob" shot an armed man inside the Golden 8 Ball in self-defense. No charges were filed. The incident is remembered as capturing what the room had become by the end.
David Lee founded and ran it, opening the room when he was in his twenties and building it into the largest pool hall in the country. Danny DiLiberto — BCA Hall of Famer, road player, and later a television commentator — was the house professional and co-builder of what the room became. In 2024 David Lee was inducted into the Arizona Billiard Hall of Fame. He is now General Manager of Metro Sportz Bar & Billiards in Phoenix.
Yes, for a period after its 1986 expansion. The room covered 16,800 square feet and held 40 Brunswick Gold Crown tables, plus a full-size snooker table and a carom table, a full kitchen, a pro shop, and a bar. Staff wore tuxedo shirts and the doors never locked.
Danny DiLiberto was the house pro. Road players and touring professionals passed through constantly, among them Ronnie Allen, Keith "Earthquake" McCready, Bill Incardona, Dennis Hatch, and CJ Wiley. In 1989 the room hosted the Golden 8-Ball Invitational, won by Hall of Famer Nick Varner. Local players including Tres Kane, Roger Griffis, and Doug "Dapper" Hale came up through the room.
The Golden 8 Ball was the center of it. It was open 24 hours and admitted all ages, so a teenager could be practicing at three in the morning two tables away from a road player in a money game. High-stakes action ran at any hour. For a generation of Phoenix players it was where reputations were made, and long-time residents still name it alongside the city's other vanished landmarks.
No. The building at 2740 West Indian School Road was razed after the hall closed, and nothing marks the site. That absence is part of why this project exists — David Lee's own collection of photographs, tournament brackets, and press was lent out over the years and never returned, so almost no physical record survives.
Post them to the Golden 8 Ball History Project page on Facebook, or tag #Golden8BallLegacy. Everything on this site was rebuilt from community memory and public records, so corrections and additions are not a footnote to the work — they are the work.
Something missing?
This project was built from community memory and public records, which means it is incomplete by definition. If a question here has a better answer, or one we have not thought to ask, tell us.