I moved back to Portland with the idea of building an upscale poolroom. After three or four “near misses” on locations, I ran into a potential landlord who had once received a call from a guy named “Walt” proposing… “Hey Al, I have an idea for a theme park in Anaheim, California and I want you to come design sets for me. I can’t pay you but I’ll give you (a zillion) shares of stock worth 22 cents each.” Al said yes. What Walt did for Al, Al did for me 50 years later: gave a kid a break that would change his life. (Thanks again, Al).

I designed the Uptown Billiards Club on a Macintosh SE 30 computer with 40MB of hard drive and a 9-inch monitor for which I paid $1400 to my dad (used). The program, “Mac Draft,” fit onto a 1.4mb floppy drive. Design done, it was time to get the city to let me put 240 people upstairs into what had been a firehouse, a garment factory, a mechanic’s garage, a theater and more. There began the battle.

Six months later, the Portland Fire Chief and Portland Building Director of Appeals called me downtown: “No project this size in the history of Portland has ever demanded this much attention; but we give, you win” (after my 4th appeal and re-design) “And given that the city will never recoup the money we’ve spent fighting you, I hope you’re a success and make it worth our while. Good luck. Don’t ever come back.”  I had a guardian angel at the City who kept me optimistic and charging forward (thanks again, Suzanne), but it was a brutal six months.

Time to get to construction… But after 3 years of trying to get open I had blown through my once-remarkable savings from the Caribbean gig! I borrowed a little here and a little there from friends and family until I had commitments enough to get started. I leveraged my entire future by putting the last $43,000 of construction costs and inventory on my credit cards.

Joelle, the love of my life (who would become my wife a year later), whose knowledge of construction and whose Rolodex of contractors proved vital to my dreams, brought my construction designs to reality at about 30 cents on the dollar plus immeasurable pizza and beer.

Uptown Billiards Club opened on October 7th, 1994, five days after my 30th birthday. That night, my own lawyer and friend pulled Joelle aside and said, “This place isn’t going to be open two months… I hope you are prepared for the financial and romantic consequences.”

So on Oct 8, 2010, UBC celebrated its 16th anniversary, followed soon after by the 15th anniversary of Kent and Joelle.  Despite the one-time lapse in judgement, the lawer is still our lawyer and still our friend!