Comments (0) Best Pool Hall - 2005

The Brass Rail

The Brass Rail is one classy pool hall. There are no bored drunks watching pretty women play from atop distant bar stools, no cheap jukeboxes playing tired tunes. Instead, a van Gogh billiards-scene print hangs under its 16-foot brass ceilings. Other amenities include plasma televisions and a long bar stocked with just about every type of booze and beer imaginable. Owner Gary Mace, 76, opened the Brass Rail a year ago, pulling from his children's inheritance and mortgaging his house to create this 32-table game room with high ceilings to clear the smoke that's typical of most pool halls. Wedged between Liberty and Gladstone off Highway 152, the Brass Rail has various league nights and tournaments throughout the week. But beware, Mace says, because a few sharks are lurking, impressed by his new shrine to a game that he's tried his whole life to master.