Juliet Cafe Bar & Billiards

I really love Juliets they’re the perfect amount of dive for a fun relaxing evening. The bartenders are great and friendly and there’s always something going on there.
My only complaint is the clientele that is sometimes a little bizarre, the layout of the billiards is a little tight and the tables are a teeny bit expensive.

Love the penne pasta. The owner is kind. Great bartenders. Wish the drinks were stronger. Over all a nice place

My heart was broken when my fiancé & I saw their previous location had closed, but then we drove down the street and tada-​a brand new one had appeared!!! Just as awesome, if not, better than the old location. They have a full bar, tons of food, and, of course, pool tables! The service is great, and they’re open really late, which is always appreciated. Even though I suck at pool, I love playing, and their prices are very reasonable, too. We LOVE this place and look forward to heading here again, soon. Very, very soon.

The atmosphere is perfect and so are their calzones. I’ve had calzones at every pizza place in the hudson valley and these guys are in the top 3. I’ve heard great thinks about their pizza but never tried it.

Weirdly enough, I have never been to Juliet’s for the pool. But I appreciate its divey-​ness and the fact that it is a pool hall, and back when my school had serious plans to turn it into a giant, unnecessary Barnes and Noble (and maybe still has post-​recession-​recovery plans?), I signed the petition that hundreds of others signed as well.
Juliet’s holds a small, small place in my heart for two reasons, though. One is the fact that on Memorial Day of 2008, while I was hungry at Vassar, they were the only thing around that I could walk to that was also open. The second reason is the hard ice cream bar they have. I love rainbow sherbet and they have it!

Let me put a disclaimer here first before I write the actual review — there really are no other pool halls in the greater Poughkeepsie area other than this one. The ones that used to exist (Sky High in Hopewell — RIP 2003 or so and the shady pool hall by Splashdown that changed hands a million times) are long since gone and really weren’t reliable and convenient as this venue.
With that being said, you have to love Juliet’s for the reliable, late-​night borderline ‘dive’ that it is. I’ve been frequenting this place since 1999 (more sporadically in recent years) and the décor hasn’t changed a bit. Sometimes I feel that the floors and the light fixtures haven’t been cleaned since then either (it certainly seems that way). Because of this, it has a very vintage feel to it and a lot of the décor is stained because nothing has changed since smoking was allowed indoors (and when it was, the haze inside was worse than a thick foggy spring morning). The pool tables are even and not well worn, however, which is important if you’re going there to actually play a game of decent pool.
My suggestion to anyone who plays billards and slightly knows what they are doing to get your own pool cue and bring it here. Pool cues are really cheap and the cues here are pretty unreliable and super greasy (which I can’t play with — but I’ve had my own cue for years :))
The food is okay for the venue — the pizza and calzones are fabulous (that’s what they are known for). They have really stepped up their food game — they have frequent dinner specials and they even offer breakfast to the early billiard birds. But what everyone else is saying here is true — I was just there last night and they charged me 5 bucks for a bowl of easy mac (when I specifically asked if it was easy mac and the overworked waitress [8 tables per 1 waitress in a pool hall? C’mon] and she had told me no). Some of their food is too greasy for words… but not everything.
No word on them converting this place into a bookstore — I think they won the battle to stay because I haven’t heard those rumors since early 2009. I’m sure this is not a great billiard hall when compared to others (does anyone remember Boston Billiards in Danbury, CT? Yea this doesn’t even compare to what that was), but it is the best in the area. And if you grew up around here, the nostalgia alone is worth a visit… and 4 stars.

Far as I can tell, this is the best place for pool in the area. The tables are full sized and in pretty good shape. They also have plenty of cues of which a fair amount are still straight. The space is actually pretty nice (imho). Not the fanciest pool hall I’ve been in, but it does it’s job. All three stars I give it are b/​c it’s good for pool.
The only thing I’ve eaten here are the wings, dip, and pizzas.
Wings — eh, nothing special. Deep fried with the normal hot sauce.
Dip — Again, eh, nothing special.
Pizza — For all the fuss they make about brick oven pizza, it’s not that good. Edible, but nothing fantastic.
They have a strange pricing strategy for their pool tables also:
$ 6/​hour for one person
$ 10/​hr for two people
$ 12/​hr for three people
$ 14/​hr for four people
Most halls I’ve been to just charge a flat table usage fee, which makes more sense.

Oh boyfriend below me, what were you thinking? I was not very fond of this place. The waitress was a biiiiiiiiiiiiotch, the food was beyond greasy, and who the hell serves Tostito chips anywhere outside of a highschool party. Yuck! Unless I was going to watch the BF hang and play pool again, I wouldn’t step foot here.

The best place in the area to shoot a rack! Pizza’s not bad either & the servers are attentive. Nice selection on the juke too. Try to get there when I have friends in town.

Juliet’s looks like a rundown pool hall with greasy food and cigarettes. And it is. But this great restaurant, cigarette shop and pool hall a late night haven for Vassar College students.
While typically, Vassar students overlook Juliet’s, which is open until 3pm on some nights, it is filled with delicious food, friendly service and cigarettes that can be charged home.
Unfortunately, in 2009 Vassar is planning to turn this beautiful and useful establishment into a Bookstore. So go here while you can, because you will truely fall in love with the Russian owner and her late-​night menu.