Pub Tables

Pub tables are great options for an eating surface in a rec room or man cave when you want something small and “manly.”  However, pub table furniture also goes great near a pool table or as a standalone piece for that matter anywhere else throughout your house.

Characteristics of Pub Tables

The major characteristic that you have to consider when buying a pub table is the height you need.  They are generally taller than dining tables, designed to accommodate bar and counter stools.  Most pub tables will range anywhere from 35 to 42 inches in height.

Legs - another major characteristic, you have to design how many legs you want to have.  Stability wise, the common four-peg pub table is better, but the increasingly popular single pedestal peg isn’t terrible.  If you have kids, you might want to stick with the four-pegs.

Shape - Typical pub table shapes include round or oval.  While less often, square and rectangular ones are also available to you — however, the edges make them less than ideal if you drink around it often.

Once you decide on the different characteristics you want to have in your new pub table, you know must decide what kind you want.  The types of pub tables can include:

Wooden - Wooden pub table sets are by far the most classic option available to you.  They provide a traditional style and look to the room they’re in, often apart of a classy-designed room.  When you think wooden pub tables, you think small, classic Inns and pubs.

Iron/Metal - Iron and metal pub tables can come in both comtemporary, as well as traditional designs.  The iron pub tables, for example, can come with curved legs, providing a somewhat “gothic” feeling.

Glass - Glass pub tables can be very high maintenance as they require an appointment with a bottle of Windex after almost every use.  Additionally, they’re not very kid (or drunk) friendly like their counterparts.

Colors/Logos - Regardless of the texture of your table, you can also get pub table furniture branded with a sport team’s logo and in almost any color.  You can buy black pub tables, white pub tables, pub tables with NCAA logos, etc. The choices are limitless.

When purchasing pub table sets that combine both pub tables with chairs, do the smart thing:  buy at the same time and from the same manufacturer.  You don’t want to “mix and match.”  Even though you may want to buy them separately as the pub tables and pub table chairs may look similar, once you get them home small differences in details and designs may start to appear.

Gene Wilder memorabilia

Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory… just to name a few.  I’ve always been a huge fan of Gene Wilder and am beginning to collect some of his autographs.

Make sure to pick them up while you can, there won’t be anymore made.

Old fashioned popcorn machines

Old-fashioned popcorn machines are good for rec rooms that not only focus around a movie entertainment system, but for those that have a lot of guests constantly.  Popcorn is a cheap and a large quantity of it can be made with minutes with an old-fashion popcorn machine.

They also look great in any styled recreational room.

Counter Height Pub Tables

We love counter-height pub tables for what should be obvious reasons — they hold everything that is pure and precious to us like beer and peanuts.

Take a look at some of the best and cheap counter height pub tables we’ve found:

Gelato Pub Table

Kidkraft Pub Table

What’s in a name?

This is the last time we will mention the terms “man cave” and “manctuary” on our site — they’re now both banned from both our site, as well as our forums. Here’s why:

While we do offer product reviews, guides, and other information for “man caves” and “manctuaries,” we disagree with the usage of terms and any variations of them and refuse to use them on our site. They’re coined terms, commercialized terms, produced and distributed for yuppies.

The definition for a “man cave” is simply a synonym of a variety of other terms already in place, one where a man, or many men, can gather without fear of repercussion to do manly things like play pool, watch sports, talk about many things, etc. Man caves can include and is often a synonym for the following places:

Dorm Rooms
Bachelor Pads
Fraternity Houses
Basements
Game Rooms
Family Room
And our favorite, recreational (rec) rooms.

No harm in that definition, right? Wrong. The difference between man caves and the other places above is one striking disparity — the associated connotations. If you can picture a guy in the suburbs of Phoenix with a wife and a kid, working as an insurance broker using a storage closet in his house to listen to a few old ACDC albums in — I can show you a man cave.

On the other hand, show me a basement with a pool table and a mahogany bar, I’ll show you somebody that has never called their room a “man cave.”

Now, don’t get us wrong — we love Phoenix. Go Suns or whatever. And we’re all married and most have kids. But this doesn’t mean you’re a second class citizen. You don’t need a “cave.” You need a room. A big, nice room that you and your entire family can show off to friends. It doesn’t have to have the flashiest or most expensive things, it just needs to be your designated place to kick back and relax in without guilt.

You shouldn’t be ashamed by it. Unless, of course, you call it a cave.

Product Buying Guides

We have over a dozen buying guides for rec room products around the Rec Room Guide site. I want to keep a master list of them for quick reference for new site visitors, as well as regulars.

Air hockey tables buying guide
Bar stools buying guide
Ceiling fans buying guide
Dart boards buying guide
Foosball tables buying guide
Home bars buying guide
Home theater seating buying guide
Leather home theater seating buying guide
Neon signs buying guide
Poker chips buying guide
Poker tables buying guide
Pool tables buying guide
Popcorn machines buying guide

We’ll update this list as we add more guides to the site.

Pool Table Lighting Height

Pool table lighting has significant effect on your and your opponent’s game—particularly if you are a precision pool shooter. When you’re determining how to come at that stripe or solid ball, you’re relying on the angles of the light on the balls. Poor lighting height will mess with the appearance of these angles, which means you might be considerably off when you hit your shot. Read the story »

Foosball Table Buying Guide

Mama Boucher always said, “Foosball? Buncha overgrown monsters man-handlin’ each other… ‘Member when dat man wanted you to play foosball, Bobby?” (The Waterboy). I don’t know how that movie quote is relevant to this buying guide in the slightest, but it does mention foosball. But, I digress. Read the story »

Air Hockey Table Buying Guide

For some reason, air hockey tables and their popularity have waned over the years. Ping pong tables and foosball tables have become the more common in fixture in game rooms, leaving air hockey tables to die and only be found in old, worn down arcades near the beach. Read the story »

Home Bar Supplies

For a classic, fully-stocked bar, you should start with the following:

• Vodka, Tequila, Gin, White Rum, and Bourbon/Scotch Whiskeys
• Mixing ingredients: Rose’s lime juice, dry Vermouth, Grenadine, and Angostura bitters
• Fresh ingredients: Mint leaves and lime/lemons
• For garnishing: Cherries, kosher salt, cocktail onions, and of course, olives
• Mixers: Soft drinks, cranberry/grapefruit juices, club soda, tonic water, and tomato juice

These are some of the materials you’ll need in your bar:

Drink Glasses. You’re serving drinks after all, right? You won’t want to have just one type of drink glass, but rather, you should have many kinds depending on what types of drinks you’ll be serving. A few nice Martini glasses are an absolute must, as are some beer mugs and glasses. How many should you buy? Well, that will depend on how many guests you’ll be entertaining at your bar at any particular time. But it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’ll need at least 2-3 of each kind.

Corkscrew. Opening wine or champagne bottles without a corkscrew is pretty difficult. Even if you don’t “plan” on serving champagne or wine in your home bar, there’s still a chance guests may bring a bottle of wine, so you’re gonna need that corkscrew. There’s a lot of different corkscrews on the market, but you’ll probably want to choose one that has several tools in one. Avoid the cheapest corkscrews, as they’ll often break when you’re trying to open the bottle.

Jigger. If you’ll be mixing drinks, the jigger is essential. It measures alcohol accurately to prevent many common mixing at home mistakes. You have a couple of options as far as what jigger to get. The steel jigger comes in several measuring sizes, while the glass jigger comes in just a 2 tablespoon size.

Bar Spoon. Do you really want to mix that drink with a regular spoon? Of course not, because a regular spoon isn’t very long, and there’s nothing worse than having your finger accidentally dip into the drink you’ve just prepared for your friend. A typical bar spoon is 10 inches long, made of steel, can crush bar ingredients easily and can even be used in lieu of a jigger.

Knife. Making a drink with fresh fruit? You’ll definitely need a good knife, then. You don’t really need to buy a special “bar knife,” as a regular knife will suffice. A couple of long knives and pairing knives are a good purchase.

Mixing Glass. You’ll need a quality mixing glass if you’re planning on making good cocktails served on ice. The mixing glass will adequately stir the cocktails so they turn out good.

Other essential items, but not mandatory:

Electric Blender: Blenders are useful not just for making milkshakes, but also for blending tasty alcohol drinks. The Strawberry Daiquiri, as well as many other drinks, require a lot of mixing, and it’s much easier to just toss the ingredients into a blender than it is to mix it by hand.

Champagne Stopper. If you don’t plan on downing that bottle of champagne or wine all in one night, you’ll definitely want to get a stopper. Stoppers keep wine and champagne from going flat, so you’ll be able to enjoy your opened bottles a bit longer.

Bottle/Can Opener. Even the strongest man or woman may have occasional trouble with opening a can or bottle of beer. A good bottle/can opener isn’t an essential item in your home bar, but it’s certainly a good purchase.

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