“People thought it’d be crazy (for bar owners) to dedicate that kind of floor space to a shuffleboard table, but he, somehow, started off with a couple of tables and built a following - to the surprise of many.” “In San Francisco, nobody had even heard of a shuffleboard table prior to James getting involved,” said John McDermott, president of The Shuffleboard Federation and director of the North American Shuffleboard Championships, who has known O’Brien for about five years. Then the O’Briens started a city league, with local bars hosting tournaments that attracted a loyal following. O’Brien’s company started about five years ago in the Bay Area renting and selling shuffleboard tables to local bars and tech startup companies eager to build office game rooms. But there aren’t many technicians left to care for the boards. However, O’Brien and others involved in the game say it’s on a recent upswing with a new generation of players emerging. Once a ubiquitous feature of social clubs and bars in the mid-20th century, shuffleboard - the tabletop version, not the one associated with cruise ship decks - waned in popularity over the years. In a one-on-one or doubles match, opponents stand on the same side of the board and duel to have the most weights on the board closest to the end - often by knocking an opponent’s weight off in the process. It’s made of different blends of materials - silicone, walnut shells or cornstarch. To the uninitiated, playing shuffleboard means shoving four biscuit-sized metal weights to the end of a 22-foot by 20-inch slab of laminated wood dusted with grit.įor players such as O’Brien, that grit is called wax. “When I come into a place and I say, ‘I want to fix your table,’ they’re like ‘Oh, we’ve been looking for someone to fix our table!’ ” “I’m the only person I even know that does this anymore,” O’Brien said. They also plan to start a shuffleboard league in Portland. O’Brien’s company does just about everything, including service calls and custom logos, restorations, and new table and game accessory sales. They plan to apply a similar formula to replicate that success here.
Through dedication to the game and embracing a niche in selling, renting and servicing local shuffleboard tables, the two were pioneers of a new San Francisco shuffleboard scene.
O’Brien and his wife, Sara, are the owners of O’Brien Shuffleboards in east Vancouver. “I feel like an evangelist when it comes to it, trying to just preach the gospel.” “This is obsession, passion, my life’s work,” he said. Now, fresh to Vancouver, filled with ambition and toting a library of boards to distribute, he plans to kindle the same passion in the hearts of pub and club patrons the across the Portland metro area. More than a decade ago, the game of shuffleboard ignited a fire within James O’Brien.