Levinsons Bogey’s Billiards & Bistro Adds Food And Fun To Coeur D’Alene’s Nightlife

Don’t mistake Bogey’s Billiards & Bistro for any smoky pool hall, say owners Ron and Elaine Levinson.

“We’ve tried to create a really upscale place,” Ron said from the second-floor dining area that overlooks about twenty pool tables. “We wanted everything here to be unique.”

Coeur d’Alene lacks any place where you shoot a rack of 9-ball on a regulation size pool table and wolf down a plate of calamari. “We saw a need here and filled it,” said Elaine Levinson.

Both saw a dead end with a furniture business in San Luis Obispo, Calif. They sold the business, moved here last spring and bought the building just off 3rd Street and Coeur d’Alene Avenue that housed the defunct Club Cherry Bomb.

The Levinsons did everything but tear down the building in putting Bogey’s together. Weary of oak and other woods from his furniture store days, Ron Levinson opted to use chrome and darker colors along with neon tubes for a ‘40s art deco look to pay homage to Humphrey Bogart.

“I wanted it to have a real masculine kind of feel with a feminine touch,” he said.

After both Ron and Elaine spent months painting and remodeling, Elaine took up the food side of this pool duo.

Bogey’s menu kept getting bigger and bigger until the Levinsons decided to take the plunge and hire a top-shelf chef, she said.

The 70-item menu features meats, seafood and other dishes of John Fisher, who’s familiar to Sunday viewers of the “Fresh Approach” cooking show on KREM-TV.

“We don’t use anything pre-prepared in any of our dishes, not the sauces, not even the beer batter for breading,” Elaine said. “We didn’t find restaurants around here that consistently delivered quality, so we wanted to set the standard with our restaurant.”

The upscale combination appears to be working so far. Weekend Bogey’s patrons sometimes have to wait an hour before a table opens up, and Ron said he hasn’t had any “poor” days since the December opening.

As with starting any new business, the road was not perfectly smooth, Elaine said. “It seemed like every new city building regulation was aimed right at us,” she said.

Then there’s the parking situation, as in, Bogey’s has no parking lot. But a little cooperation with U.S. Bank across Coeur d’Alene Avenue has helped. The Levinsons have their staff clean up the parking lot after customers who park their at night.

While the Levinsons have geared Bogey’s toward families, the nightspot has been quite popular with Coeur d’Alene teens. Ron says many of the club’s regulars are teens, and he plans to hold Sunday tournaments for younger players to add to the weekly tournaments for adults at Bogey’s during the week.

Local kids under 21 Elaine spoke with were thrilled to hear that they could shoot racks at Bogey’s, she said. “A lot of kids who are about 19 work at the Coeur d’Alene Resort and they get off work at 10 p.m. or so, and we give them a place to go.”

The club prohibits teens under 18 from being in the club without an adult after 7 p.m.

“We had to make it clear that we wouldn’t have loitering in the place,” Ron said. “This used to be a place where all the kids hang out, and when we moved in they were determined to stay here. But I think a lot behave because they see this is an upscale place.”

The emergence of Bogey’s has improved the diversity of Coeur d’Alene’s nightlife, said Suzanne Kaderka, executive director of the Coeur d’Alene Downtown Association.

“Having specialized places like that is one of our strengths,” she said. “I heard from many of my friends who really have just raved about the food there.”

For the Levinsons, getting Bogey’s off the ground gobbled up most of their time. But Elaine is especially pleased about the comfortable atmosphere of the patrons at Bogey’s that belies the old rough pool hall image. She cheerfully brings brings their 5-year-old daughter into after school.

“She plays the pinball, rolls the balls around and has a good time while I’m working in our office back here,” she said. “That’s nice for us because we spend so much time here.”

The love of pool brought Ron Levinson into the billiard business, but he wryly admits that he’s probably played even less pool now that he owns his own club. He’s been trying to cut back on his hours that have him working deep into the morning.

“For me, this isn’t really work,” he said. “It’s mostly just fun.”