Valley Stream pool hall gets TV makeover

John Misak’s family has owned the Guys and Dolls Pool Hall in Valley Stream for the past 40 years, but after his father died in 2007, the family business began to flounder. It seemed as if the Merrick Road staple might have to close its doors for good, until Misak received a call that would change his life forever.

Producers from the Discovery Channel selected Misak’s pool hall as a potential site for its new show, “Construction Intervention.”

“When I first got the call, I wasn’t sure if it was serious,” Misak said. “I thought it was the biggest long shot in the world, like winning the lottery. I didn’t think we had a chance.”

According to Misak, the new Discovery Channel program selects a business with a “good story,” then hires local construction workers to gut the business and completely renovate it in four days. In November, Misak said producers contacted him about possibly profiling his business, and then he got an e-mail in January that they wanted to interview him. “They wanted to know the story,” he said. “So I told them, I spent my life here and to watch it fall down is like seeing a family member sick.”

Misak said he spent every Saturday afternoon growing up at Guys and Dolls, playing arcade games and shooting pool with his three sisters, Lisa, Tina and Samantha. The pool hall was the heart and soul of their family, he said, and when producers told him they had selected Guys and Dolls as their new project, he knew his life had changed forever.

“My mother, Carol, she started crying...she was so happy,” Misak said about when she first saw the newly-renovated pool hall. “They even dedicated a plaque on the pool table my father used to play on. Everything they did was so classy, but it was bittersweet. I just wish my dad was here to see this.”