ABOUT OLHAUSEN

Watching Brian Olhausen describe the finer points of his family’s namesake pool table on the showroom floor takes him and his family’s journey full circle.

Once just a tall kid who tagged behind dad Butch and uncle Donny, this fourth generation son has managed the family business for ten years now. For Brian, the six foot, seven-inch scion of Olhausen GameRooms, it’s the spot he’s been groomed for all his life.

Lifetimes of Learning 

As youngsters growing up in Las Cruces, New Mexico in the Fifties, Butch and Donny Olhausen tagged along with their dad, Jerry, and watched him set up, repair and re-cover pool tables as a side gig.
Jerry Olhausen had learned pool table repair from his relation, William Kale, who had bought a pool hall in rural Hartley, Iowa in 1920. The family operated it through the Roaring Twenties, Prohibition, the Depression and World War II.

During the years their dad served in the United States Air Force at Roswell AFB, Holloman AFB and New Mexico State University, Butch and Donny spent hundreds of hours in their dad’s basement shop—listening, learning, assimilating and doing. 

By the end of high school, the Olhausen boys could fix just about anything on any pool table. And their path was set.

In the late Sixties, Butch moved to San Diego. Several years later, his younger brother joined him. In 1972, the Olhausen brothers started their own company—moving, repairing and re-covering older tables. 

For additional cash, they started delivering new pool tables for the owner of a local manufacturing company. They charged twelve bucks to deliver a new table, using Butch’s 1959 Chevy El Camino and buying their own gas. What a deal! Routinely, they’d complete installations by lunchtime—followed by pounding the pavement in search of more work.

Then came a great opportunity! The owner of the manufacturing company offered to sell the boys his business for $1,000 cash and the inventory note. They pooled every dime they had and bought the company. And that’s when their world changed.

As teens, Butch and Donny had seen just how poorly the tables they repaired with their dad had been built. While out on repairs or down in the shop, they discussed how they could fix them better. 

Then, boom! Butch said, “What the hey! We could—should—build our own table! Bet we can build them better than anyone else in the world!”

And that was that.

The San Diego company they had bought manufactured one table every ten days. Thus, their immediate goal was to somehow double the business in the first year. Every day, Donny built ‘em and Butch sold ‘em. By 1975, the Olhausen brothers were working eight days a week and selling 300 annually.

Year after year, the brothers improved products and processes: hand-picking Grade I northeastern slow-growth hardwoods; mining one-inch thick diamond honed slate from Italy and South America; stabilizing the table with a massive Uniliner® frame; and upgrading all nuts, bolts, screws, wires and tensions.

Still, one improvement eluded them: Incorporating a rubber cushion that wouldn’t dry or crack. Billiard balls rebounded poorly when caroms hit cracks. 

So, they worked on bettering the rails. And after each unsuccessful try, they’d make an adjustment. Following years of wrong turns, they finally found the right mix. 

The brothers patented their invention! And the Olhausen Accu-Fast® 100% pure gum rubber cushion was born to play true for decades without cracking or drying. 

This proprietary four rail cushion is what makes an Olhausen the world’s best-built pool table. And every table constructed incorporates them.

Over four generations, success has created opportunity. The gift from William Kale to Jerry Olhausen became Jerry’s gift to Butch and Donny—a lifelong trade for each. In turn, this know-how now drives Brian’s daily mission.

This morning, 100 years and 1,500 miles from his ancestral family home, Brian Olhausen stands on the showroom floor demonstrating what four generations of family ingenuity, pride and TLC has built…a thing of beauty. He is smiling.