GAME ROOMS

In an era dominated by screens, phones, and social media, Josh Thorne, CEO of Quality Billiards & Game Rooms — a 2024 Best of Salt Lake City award-winning business, is creating game rooms where families can get together, laugh and make memories through good new & old-fashioned fun — all in the comfort of their own home. They truly are Utah’s game room headquarters.

Josh and his team work with interior designers, builders, and homeowners to transform ordinary basements, family rooms, and spare rooms into vibrant interactive game rooms — complete with the customer’s choice of pool and ping pong tables, shuffleboards, pinball machines, foosball tables, and anything you can imagine in a game room, plus specialized lighting. “We strive to make a space functional and flow well, we love helping with layouts and design.” 

Josh recollects growing up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “As kids we were always outside, throwing dirt clots, shooting bottle rockets, and playing baseball. Then the internet came out when I was 16. I was the last generation that had both sides of the spectrum, and I feel very fortunate about that. With social media and cell phones being so powerful, the more time I disconnect to reconnect with real life, I am more present with my family and the faster deep relationships are formed. And we are all craving those connections.”

By bringing families together through games, Josh has continued to honor the legacy of Quality Billiards, which began with the Baker family in 1972. The Baker family had been master pool table builders since the 1960s. With an unyielding work ethic and a commitment to giving second-to-none service, the Bakers built the Quality Billiards brand, adding more and more games to keep up with the rapid growth of the industry.  

After four decades of success, Ray Baker felt it was time to sell the business, and with that, the manufacturing side came to a close. But the sales and service side has skyrocketed, in large part due to Josh, who took the helm in 2019. 

Josh worked for many years as a civilian helicopter pilot, but whether he was flying private charters or managing search and rescue missions, he handled every situation with the greatest of customer care and compassion. This afforded him the tools to continue the Baker family’s legacy of quality ‘Made in the USA’ products and service excellence. But it is his ‘never give up’ philosophy that allows Josh to meet every customer need — even the most challenging. 

Josh explains it this way: “Sometimes a customer will order a 22-foot shuffleboard and we cannot get it into the home because the play field is a solid piece of wood. That’s when we get really creative. We have had to hire cranes, use a service elevator, lift a table through a second story, or even through a basement window with a couple of guys at the other end to pull it into the room. We have even had customers tear down and rebuild walls to install products.”

But sometimes serving a customer takes nothing more than kindness and listening.

In Josh’s words, “One of our customers was a super sweet older gentleman. He and his wife had wanted to buy this special pool table for years. But she passed away, so he gave the pool table to himself as a gift in remembrance of her. We took over-the-top care of him and made sure everything was to his liking. He was so appreciative and shared how happy his wife would have been. He still stops by to say hello.”

Great service and products have allowed Quality Billiards & Game Rooms to keep the bright lights on through fifty-four years. But Josh is making sure the business that meant the world to the Baker family reaches new heights. He sees how society is coming back full circle to the gentler, more closely knit family life of the 70s and 80s. And Josh is making sure the games that were once a mainstay in family circles continue to play a huge role today.

Josh finds real satisfaction in his work. “Families are always telling us how much their kids and grandkids are using and enjoying the game rooms, and we get to see these families when they buy accessories for the pool table or buy a pinball machine. Or when they tell their neighbors about their games and invite friends and family over to play. We are bringing families together again,” he says, “and that is a great feeling.”