Billiard Factory opens third location in Joplin

The new location, on South Range Line Road in Joplin, will join existing stores in Springfield and Springdale, Ark., and will also carry the name The Billiard Factory when it opens in early September.

Bailey said that, despite the fact that this will be the company’s third factory retail store, retail sales are not the company’s focus.

“Our primary business is as a wholesale manufacturer of pool tables and billiard products,” he said. “Approximately 85 percent of our sales are wholesale, but because of our proximity to Springfield, we opened our first retail store there in 2001. Normally, we’re selling to other billiard stores or specialty retailers nationwide.”

The company employs approximately 45 at its manufacturing facility in Marionville. The 4,500-square-foot Springfield store was the company’s first retail direct sales store; the slightly smaller Springdale, Ark., location opened in 2003.

Jasen Goodall, manager of the Springdale store, also will be managing the new Joplin location. He said the expansion into Joplin made sense.

“We’ve been looking at the area for a while, and it was basically an untapped market,” he said. “It was a natural move for us, considering the proximity to the factory.”

The Joplin store will be the smallest of the three locations, covering just over 2,500 square feet.

All in the family

The Bailey family knows a thing or two about making pool tables.

Chuck Bailey’s father, Charles, has been running his own pool table manufacturing company since he founded Play Master in 1973. Chuck joined the company full time after graduating from college in 1988.

In 1993, AMF Bowling purchased the company, but the Baileys couldn’t stay in retirement for long.

They purchased a manufacturing facility in Marionville and began the C.L. Bailey Co. in 1999.

Though the company specializes in manufacturing and wholesale, the move into the retail arena was good for the company,

Bailey said.

“It made sense to control the delivery of all the products in our immediate vicinity,” he said. “We don’t have to have inventory in our stores except for display models and what’s on the shelf. It’s a way to leverage our existing infrastructure to capture the bulk of the market share in southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas.”

And the company continues to branch out.

In 2002, it teamed up with a sister company, The Level Best, which supplies billiard and game room accessories ranging from game tables to bar stools to cue racks.

C.L. Bailey also imports a line of pool tables, sold under the Fischer brand name, that the company has manufactured in Malaysia to its specifications.

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