During the Sixties in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Jerry Olhausen had a part-time job setting up and re-covering pool tables in his garage shop. As time went on, his sons Donny and Butch would help. It was an enjoyable sidelight for Jerry.

In 1969, Butch left home and moved to California and Donny joined him three years later. They helped move pool tables for a shopkeeper in National City, near where the Navy docks in San Diego. The shopkeeper, Mr. Franken, was building thirty pool tables a year and Butch and Donny would haul the finished tables in their ’59 El Camino and set them up. They earned twelve dollars per project, including gas, delivery and installation.

Mr. Franken decided to sell out and Butch and Donny bought the company for one thousand dollars plus monies on the remaining inventory the Olhausen brothers sold.

Butch and Donny start building tables themselves. Their goal was to build 30 tables in their first year of production.

Soon, they started writing down all the things that made a difference in building pool tables—types of wood, lumber contractors, balance, slate, cushions, leather, finish.

They prepped a pages-long list with lots of diagrams. At the top of the list, however, was their core objective—quality rules.

They created a two-man research and development team to build the world’s best pool table. By the late Seventies, they were building them better and people started wanting them more. Production increased from 35 tables to 300 per year during the decade.

The Eighties was a time of increasing everything—more space, more people, more improvements—and more success. By 1994, they had sold 100,000 pool tables.

Today, they’re approaching one-half million tables—built in Tennessee in the world’s largest and most advanced billiard manufacturing facility by master craftsmen using only the world’s best slate, rubber, woods, leathers and finishes. Whereas we once made 30 tables a year, we now make 30,000. Guess we’ve built a better mousetrap.

Visit San Diego, however, and you’ll find the greatest thing—Butch’s two boys, Willie and Brian—working at the Olhausen Game Room Superstore in San Diego. When you think how Jerry Olhausen’s dad managed a tavern with pool tables in the Forties back in Iowa, the Olhausen family has been working in this industry four generations. It’s a thing of beauty.

Making the world’s best pool tables—and selling them—is the Olhausen family’s pride and joy. Play one and see.