Adelaide pool lounge come nightclub Shotz is facing the end of an era as its owner seeks to move on from the Pirie Street late night staple after nearly two decades.

The news was broken over the venue’s Facebook page last night with a screenshot of the business’ listing on brokering site birniesanders.com.au with a deadline of November 27. As founder and owner Warren King explains to ripitup.com.au, changing market conditions, laws and a new job managing neighbouring venue Office made it the right time to move on.

“There’s been a bit of a decline since they started the lockout, that was, I guess, the beginning,” King explains. “It changed the migration of all the clubbers really. Going back prior to lockouts we used to get a lot of hospitality and musos used to make their way to shots between 1.30am and 3.30am, but that’s kind of all changed when the lockouts came.”

The effect has been more pronounced for venues outside the core partying districts of the East and West Ends. “If you’re a destination venue as we are, you suffer more than people who are in that precinct where there’s lots happening,” he explains. “We still have big nights, unless you’ve got something they want to come along to, we don’t get that regular clientele like we used to.”

While King is keen to find a new owner to continue the business – which, he says, remains profitable despite changes in to Adelaide’s nightlife –he’s also quite upbeat about moving on from the venue he started 17 years ago.

“We used to be a billiards room,” he recalls. “Then going back 17 years ago there was a venue called Sticks that used to play a little bit of music, like indie and alternative style of music. There weren’t very many places that played the style of music we played, so we sort of morphed into more of a club from a billiards room.

“I used to be a professional snooker player [seriously, check him out on YouTube], and had a billiards room set up. That’s what I always wanted to do, but it wasn’t going to be sustainable,” he recalls. “So we morphed into more of an entertainment venue - my wife came up with the name Shotz!”

“I can’t complain, 17 years in this industry is a long time,” he says.

If you happen to have a casual hundred large lying around and would like to buy Shotz, details are right here.

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Photograph:

Shotz Bar / Facebook