A FORMER CENTER STREET POOL HALL
The name Al’s Billiards outlasted the business. Years after the pool hall closed, local reports still used it to identify the brick building on Center Street. Its projecting sign and the lettering on a rear tin structure became part of the discussion about what a new owner would keep—and what a new bar would change.
Updated 2026.
Where Al’s stood
Al’s Billiards operated at 128 S. Center Street, just south of Main Street in downtown Turlock. The business closed in 2016.
The Journal’s January 2023 account dates the brick building to 1912 and describes a 3,568-square-foot space that had remained vacant since the closure. The report also preserves the former business’s mix of billiards, darts and occasional live music.
The first plan for a new bar
Dan Leonis proposed a replacement soon after the closure. The city’s 2016 planning archive records an application from 39 Milestone LLC on September 7, followed by approval on November 3, 2016. The plans called for billiards, electronic darts, shuffleboard and live entertainment.
The project would also have changed the building’s relationship to the sidewalk. Seating was proposed at the entrance and behind the building, with fencing around the rear area. The existing blade sign—the sign projecting out from the front—was to be replaced. The plan was for a new business in the old hall, with changes to both its entertainment and its exterior.
39 Milestone returns to the commission
The 2016 project did not become an opening. Leonis returned with a new application, and the city’s 2023 project record lists March 2, 2023 as the approval date for CUP 2022-08. It proposed a bar with billiards, electronic darts, live entertainment and outdoor seating, along with a change to a Type 48 alcohol license allowing beer, wine and distilled spirits.
The Journal’s report on that approval explains the unusual name. Dan Leonis’s family cabin was 39 miles from Placerville along an old Pony Express route; that mileage supplied “39 Milestone.” He had been trying to redevelop the Turlock property since 2016, but the earlier permit had expired before the work went ahead.
Why the sign became part of the story
In the 2023 report, Leonis said roughly fifty people had asked about the vertical Al’s sign. He had not decided its future. Removing it was part of a plan to recess the entrance ten feet and fit seating within the building’s original footprint.
The branded tin structure at the rear had served as storage. Its removal was also part of the redevelopment plan, with storage to move upstairs. The familiar lettering was attached to parts of the building whose uses were changing. The documented approval does not establish that 39 Milestone subsequently opened.
A smaller trace of the pool hall
TokenCatalog’s California collection records tokens marked “Al’s Pool Hall” and “Turlock,” redeemable for a beer or a draft. These are another trace of the name in local recreation history.
For an operating downtown bar with its own long paper trail, see Staley’s Club. Our Main Street guide covers the surrounding blocks, and Turlock’s history follows the older buildings and businesses that shaped them. Have an Al’s photograph, menu or recollection with a date attached? Share it with Local Turlock.
