Vintage St. Pete: The shuffleboard renaissance

The fact that Shuffle Board (sic) is simple and requires no training has made the sport one of the most popular pastimes in St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg Times/Feb. 10, 1924

St. Petersburg was a winter town in the early 20^th century. Both the Vinoy and Don CeSar hotels were built in the 1920s for visiting northerners, who arrived by train in November and December and were almost always gone by April.

There were other, less expensive places to stay, of course, but all of them – from the smallest Mom & Pop hotels to the opulent pink palaces – struggled to stay in the black during the warmer months, when the visitors had returned home.

Paramount, too, in the minds of city fathers was how to keep these people entertained while they were in the city. Boating and fishing were, of course, popular pastimes, but those weren’t to everyone’s taste.

Williams Park – where regular city band concerts took place – was home to a checkers club, a chess club and a domino club. A form of croquet known as roque was a popular participatory sport, as was lawn bowling.

But shuffleboard was king.

The St. Petersburg Mirror Lake Shuffleboard Club, 1925. Photo: Burgert Bros. Collection/Hillsborough County Library System.

It’s believed shuffleboard – a game of sliding round disks around a flat, outdoor surface with sticks – originated in Great Britain, during the 16^th century reign of Henry VIII. It was changed, adapted and modified over the centuries.

A Daytona Beach hotelier is credited with introducing the first “modern” shuffleboard court in 1913. The game spread across the state and eventually reached St. Petersburg.

The city’s parks department installed a pair of primitive masonry courts, adjacent to Mirror Lake, in late 1923. Early the following year, six devoted players established the St. Petersburg Mirror Lake Park Shuffleboard Club, thought to be the first organized shuffleboard organization in the world.

In less than a month, additional courts had been laid, lights were installed for night play, and membership swelled to 225.

The St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club, as it’s known today, celebrated its 100^th anniversary in 2024.

Undated postcard image. Florida Archives.

In St. Petersburg, shuffleboard’s journey from a distraction for winter visitors to a lure for young hipsters was circuitous.

According to the official St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club history page, the City put up the $11,000 needed to build the first clubhouse, in 1927. It had a fireplace, 24 card tables, 100 folding chairs, 16 smoking stands, a clock and a drinking fountain. They held dances there.

By the close of the winter season of 1929, the club had 2,588 members, playing on 71 courts.

In time, there were shuffleboard courts at every motel in Florida. Still, the St. Petersburg Club thrived over the decades, albeit as a place where older residents went to have simple and inexpensive fun.

Slow, unchallenging shuffleboard gained a reputation as a “old people” game. It was, by the 1970s, the sort of activity used in the media to illustrate how St. Petersburg was “God’s Waiting Room.”

In 1994, the club – remodeled, refurbished and expanded numerous times – was designated a Local Historic Landmark.

Christine Page is the current president of the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club. “Back in the ‘90s, early 2000s, it really was in jeopardy,” she explains. “There were like 35 members left – they were all playing, but they were all older and really not able to do the work that comes with growing the place.”

In April 2005, a group of young artistic types – painter Chad Mize among them – approached the then-president about opening the club on Friday nights for free play. The idea, recalls Page, was simple: “If you don’t know shuffleboard, and you drive by the place and nothing ever seems to be happening there, you can come in and play.”

They hoped to “get the St. Pete community involved, and understand what a special place it is. And slowly but surely, people started to come on the Friday nights. Then they started joining the club. And that’s what initially turned it around.”

The City bankrolled $150,000 in repairs in 2008. “Even In the shuffleboard community, the place was known as run down,” Page says. “There weren’t a lot of tournaments at the time. So when the city saw what was happening, and saw the attendance, they realized it was a good idea to make some improvements to the facility. And bring it up to code.”

One hundred years after it first opened, the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Court is a destination again. With 2,700 members, it is the largest shuffleboard club in the United States.

Tommy Stinson of the Replacements performed at the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club Jan. 10, 2024. Photo by Christine Page.

There’s league play three times a year, which attracts more than 200 people per night. And sometimes, there are concerts.

Who’s the typical shuffleboarder, circa 2024?

Page herself remembers what drew her to the club back in the ‘00s. “At the time I was freelancing, working from home all day with my hands on the computer,” she says. “ And I wanted some place to go and actually interact with people face to face. And do something real and tangible. I think a lot of people were attracted to the authenticity of the place – and how quintessentially St. Pete it is.”

St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club website.