barMystery Diners · Season 8, Episode 5 · Aired November 3, 2014
Uptown Billiards Club
Portland, Oregon
Open. The rescue stuck and it continues to operate.
What happened after
Billiards bar at 120 NW 23rd Ave; Instagram bio text found via search reads 'we've been the best-kept secret in Portland since 1994,' phrased in present tense (undated post). Instagram account confirmed to exist via direct fetch.
What happened on the show
Kent Lewis worried that the social-media specialist he had hired to draw crowds to his Portland billiards club was not delivering, even as his numbers stayed flat. Charles Stiles sent a single mystery diner, Amber, in as a waitress. As aired, the specialist has been letting his own friends drink and shoot pool free on coupons meant for paying customers, while a bartender hustles guests with the help of a pool shark who plays drunk to lure bigger bets. The confrontation has Kent firing the bartender and cutting the specialist's contract, the bartender flatly denying any hustling. Stiles closes with business back to normal. Because Mystery Diners was later accused of scripting its confrontations, this billiards sting is best read as broadcast rather than as documented event.
After the cameras left
Uptown Billiards Club appears to be open, though the evidence is thin. Its Instagram bio calls it a Portland fixture since 1994 in present-tense terms and the account is live, but with no dated hours or reviews we hold it at low confidence in our 2026 pass. A social bio is a mild signal, not a firm one, and Mystery Diners left no rescue to trace. The likeliest read is a going neighborhood pool hall that simply keeps a quiet footprint, but we stop short of asserting it.
Sources
Confidence: low. Last checked 2026-07-19.
What is there now
Street imagery via Google Maps. Location approximate.