Game On

Not every celebrity endorsement is a sure thing (sorry, Mr. T). In 2008, however, Susan Sarandon threw her name behind the sport of table tennis, and what followed was a meteoric rise in the game’s popularity. Her NYC-based “ping-pong social club,” SPiN, has since expanded to Toronto, LA, and Milwaukee, and rumor has it St. Petersburg, Tokyo, and Moscow are next.

The idea behind SPiN was to give the game formerly relegated to your neighbor’s basement a new arena—one with expert equipment and forward-thinking design, tasty bar food, and good music. In other words, to make table tennis cool. Needless to say, the formula has been a successful one. The club draws all types, from hard-core enthusiasts to the attractive young things that come to take in the scene. And you know a trend has caught on when the two groups begin to blend together.

SPiN has benefitted not only from Sarandon’s star power, but also from a favorable shift in our social appetite. With our taste for retro everything, we’ve welcomed back okra, canned beer, fedoras, and scores of “speakeasy” bars. And when it comes to entertainment, pastimes from our childhood have captured our collective attention. Ping-pong, along with traditional birthday-party favorites like bowling, skating, and Skee-ball, is now part of a global gaming nightlife trend, for which SPiN helped pave the way. Sure, games like darts and shuffleboard have always made their way into bars. But with SPiN and its spin-offs, drinking takes second stage to sport. Just look around and you’ll notice most players choose to put down their beers when they pick up their paddles (though they make it clear that it’s perfectly okay if you don’t).

Why and how ping-pong amassed its zealous followers will always be part mystery. One theory is that the lightness of the ball and the relatively small field of play act to equalize opponents. It’s a game of finesse, you could say. If there’s any event in which a stringy nerd has a shot of bringing down a towering brute, it’s going to be a game of finesse. No matter the match-up, there’s always the possibility of victory, and that’s exciting. I’m a twenty-five-year-old female whose inability to do a pull-up in gym class resulted in the nickname “noodle arms.” Somehow, still, I’ve taken matches against collegiate athletes (sorry Jeff, Andrew, and Will). Then again, I’ve also lost ones to my eleven-year-old cousin (kudos Olympia). In that sense, that is what really makes ping-pong a game more than a sport, though I fear the community will come after me for saying so.

If part of the fun of ping-pong is the ultimate possibility of victory, part of the fun is also losing yourself along the way. Ping—the ball drops on the open face of the table; pong—it’s met with the hollow force of a small wooden paddle. And so it goes, a cadence that lulls opponents into a comfortable back and forth until the rhythm is broken by the first mis-hit or powerful put-away. In such a fast-paced game, it’s hard to even know how your body does what it does. Are you acting or reacting? Playing offense or defense? Are you even thinking anymore?

But even when we’re taking ourselves seriously, we’re not taking ourselves too seriously, right? It’s a game, after all. Mostly, it’s about having fun. And hopefully the new designer digs and the beautiful people around you are no threat to that.

If you count yourself among ping-pong’s fans, don’t question your love. Run with it.

Here’s a list of places around the globe to get your game on.

New York
SPiN
The mothership of ping-pong clubs: a Todd Oldham-designed, 13,000-square-foot space with up to 16 courts, a full bar, and a nice little restaurant called Duck’s Eatery. SPiN is open to members and guests alike, but members play at a discounted rate.
48 East 23rd Street

Los Angeles
SPiN Hollywood
The first expansion of the SPiN empire, set in the chic lobby lounge of The Mondrian Los Angeles. The club welcomes hotel guests and visitors. You can even request a lesson with Sooyeon Lee, a good example of a hard-core enthusiast who’s also an attractive young thing.
8440 Sunset Boulevard

Washington DC
Comet Ping Pong
Come for the pizza. Stay for the pong. Or the art. Or the music. Housed in a impossibly cool industrial-chic space, Comet serves up sophisticated pies like the Yalie (clams, garlic, melted onions, thyme, parmesan, and lemon) which you can wash down with a cold Allagash White (a choice Portland brew), and then burn off with a few matches.
5037 Connecticut Avenue NW

Berlin
Dr. Pong
Oliver Miller, an American and Princeton-trained architect, opened up Dr. Pong in the hip hood of Prenzlauerberg in the 90′s. It is undeniably more of a bar than a ping-pong “club”, but chic nonetheless, in that typically severe Berlin sort of way. Think bare fluorescent bulbs (a nod to Flavin?) and graffiti murals (accidental Pollock?). For a truly abstruse description, Miller’s manifesto is an amusing read, as it concludes with the statement that “the organization of the organization, as well as its space, are therefore intended to be less than comprehensively organized. It should be clear what makes up the association and its activities, but less definable in what it produces in the way of a specific atmospheric quality or public image.”
Eberswalder Strasse 21

Hong Kong
Tazmania Ballroom
With Tom Dixon’s touch, it should be no surprise that game really played at Tazmania Ballroom is really bling-pong. This futuristic bunker club in Hong Kong’s hot district of Lan Kwai Fong is where you can rally on Tuesday and Thursday nights, when the gold-plated pool tables are raised up to make way for pong.
1/F LKF Tower, 33 Wyndham Street

Know of other great joints? Share a suggestion in the comments section or email us.

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