Best place to play pool

People walk down Brookline Avenue on their way to Boston Billiard Club with pool cues slung over their shoulders like rifles. It can catch you off guard if you don't know that these people are off to shoot some stick and not innocent passers-by. Year after year, Boston Billiard runs the table for Phoenix readers' pick for a place to play pool. It's a swanky place, all leather chairs, dark greens, maroons, and Gold Crown tables as far as the eye can see. Weekdays from 4 to 7 p.m., everything on the "Tapas" menu costs $2.95. Wednesday nights are for the ladies: three at a table get 25 percent off, four get 50 percent. And you can hone your skills at pool school on Monday nights at 7:30, when Billiard offers free lessons for novices and pros alike.

At Flat Top Johnny's, Phoenix readers' pick for Cambridge pool parlor, MIT grad students and local biotechies map out the angles with their big math brains, awkward first-date couples play a round before a movie at the Kendall, and punksters in tight jeans and studded belts tap their feet to the barroom soundtrack. Twelve tables and a laid-back atmosphere; a nine-ball tourney every Monday night; free pool after 11 p.m. on Wednesdays, when local rock stars spin their favorite tunes; half off for women on Tuesdays; a bunch of beers on tap; and waitresses who deliver them without disrupting a shot make Flat Top's comfortable, classy, and cool.

Boston Billiard Club, 126 Brookline Avenue, Boston, (617) 536-POOL; Flat Top Johnny's, 1 Kendall Square, Building 200, Cambridge, (617) 494-0966