After nearly 40 years, this Fresno business is closing. The building and iconic mural remain

For decades now, Mecca Billiards has been one of the most visible pieces of real estate in downtown Fresno’s Brewery District.

It has good signage.

Back in 2001, owner Richard Stockle Jr. — Rick as he was known — teamed up with painter Francisco Vargas to create a 20-by-50 foot mural on the facade of the building. It was a giant game of nine-ball set on green backdrop — a perfect concept for the pool table outlet and service center.

Stockle Jr. was diagnosed with the degenerative disease ALS in 2020 and the family decided to close the business at the end of last year once he could no longer do the hands-on work, says his wife Nanette Stockle.

“It just wasn’t the same without Rick doing it,” she says.

Stockle Jr. died on Feb. 18 from ALS. He was 67.

While the building and its iconic mural will remain intact, the business is having an every-thing-must-go clearing house sale to clear the space for needed maintenance and repair that must happen before it can be leased.

Mecca Billiards will be open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday to sell whatever remains of the inventory — poker tables and chairs, dice and dart sets, and old pool cues and balls — but also tools, cabinets, even a forklift.

Nearly 40 years on Fulton Street

Mecca Billiards was started by Stockle’s father in the early 1960s and was one of several iconic downtown businesses for the family. Richard Stockle Sr. ran Richard’s Prime Rib and Seafood for the majority of the Belmont Avenue restaurant’s existence.

Mecca Billiards had been at the same address on Fulton Street for nearly 40 years, Stockle says. The couple never saw reason to move.

A 2007 story in The Fresno Bee quoted Stockle as one of a handful of “stubborn holdouts,” against possible eminent domain that was happening in the area. “We’ve prospered down here, but it took us a while to get established,” she said at the time.

She didn’t think the business could afford a similar-sized setup anywhere else.

“Where are we going to go?”

Since then, Stockle’s stretch of Fulton Street has been a center point in the growing Brewery District. Mecca Billiards is one of the last pieces of property left to be redeveloped.

See: Sun Stereo Warehouse and Zack’s Brewery (now Full Circle Brewery). There are also plans for the Downtown Auto Care building on the corner of Fulton and Inyo. Across the street is a stretch of renovated buildings that includes the Modernist, Dab Tacos and the 411 Rec Room. A whiskey lounge is in the works at the end of the block.

Exactly what comes comes next for Mecca Billiards is still very much up in the air.

The couple had talked about opening the place as a proper pool hall, but it never went beyond talk, Stockle says, especially after Rick was diagnosed with ALS. “It wasn’t something we could do.”

Rick always liked the idea of it becoming some kind of entertainment venue, maybe a restaurant, hopefully, a place with a billiard table or two.

But Stockle also knows it’s not her vision for the space that matters.

“It’s kind of paying attention to what other people’s visions might be,” she says.

“Our time is over.”