Time for another “dart bars of Itaewon” review.  This week:  Pub Scrooge.

The Pub is located in the alley behind Hamilton Hotel, across the street from 3 Alley Pub/Sam Ryan’s.

I’ve not eaten here, but as you can see they have a nice menu.  This is basically your full service pub.  I guess its niche is they televise all those bizarre European/Aussie sports like soccer and Rugby.

It sports 3 well lighted dart boards.

A somewhat small bar…

But more than ample table seating.

And of course a regulation size pool table.

And they have a rather impressive trophy case.  I assume Scrooge sponsors a rugby team or two in addition to their dart teams.

Here’s the old Walrus keeping track of the score during our more than a little disappointing match against the Scrooge Dartoholics last night.

So, although I rarely frequent Pub Scrooge unless I’m playing darts I think it is a very pleasant environment; clean, modern, and comfortable.

But this is a dart bar review, so let’s talk about the play at Scrooge.  The boards we used were in good condition and the lighting is good.  The third board was in poor shape, but I expect they would put up a new should it be required for league or tournament play.

It gets a tad crowded with both boards in play, but its not really an issue, you just need to maintain situational awareness so you don’t bump a shooter.  What I didn’t like is the chalking (scoreboards) being BEHIND the oche.  Technically speaking, the shooter should be able to see the scoreboard at all times.  For this reason, most bars have the chalker set up next to the board.  Obviously, not room for that at Scrooge and I found myself constantly stepping off the line to check the board, which is at best an unnecessary distraction and at worst takes you out of your throwing rhythm.

The other thing I don’t like is that the wall on which the boards are mounted is not perpendicular–it slants about 5 degrees right to left.  Which means the oche line is slanted (as it must be).  Now, I guess if you played here on a regular basis you’d get used to it, but I found it somewhat disconcerting for most of the night as I lined up for my shots.

Therefore, although I find Scrooge a pleasant enough pub it is not amongst my favorite venues for darts.  Certainly fine for chucking darts with friends while quaffing some brews, but not great for competitive play.  I’m going to rate Pub Scrooge a B- overall.

And that’s all I have to say about that.