Settled right by the Dawsonville town square is the Dawsonville Pool Room, known for its food, racing memorabilia, and famous customers.
According to the Dawsonville Pool Room’s website, Gordon Pirkle’s restaurant was made famous by Bill Elliot during his racing career. Elliot, known as “Awesome Bill from Dawsonville,” is a Dawsonville native and former NASCAR driver who won 44 NASCAR Cup Series races.
The Pool Room is a NASCAR-themed lunch spot on weekdays and NASCAR central on Sunday afternoons. The Elliot family are frequent flyers at the Dawsonville Pool Room and are close friends with the owner and his family.
Bill Elliot’s son, Chase, is a 25-year-old NASCAR driver currently on the Hendrick Motorsports team who is just a few years into his career. Chase Elliot drives the number nine car and won the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series Championship.
When Chase Elliot was racing for the Cup Series Championship, the diner was packed with friends, family, and strangers gathered to watch the Dawsonville native bring home the championship trophy with NBC camera crews on standby. The crowd ate burgers and talked with their friends while their excitement was uncontainable. Everyone kept a close eye on the TV as they watched their neighbor race at Pheonix Raceway.
Life-long best friend of Chase Elliot and grandson to the owner of the Dawsonville Pool Room, Michael Garrett, said it was “top five happiest moments in my lifetime,” when announcing to the crowd that Elliot had won the race and the championship.
Just seconds before Chase Elliot’s car was the first to pass the checkered flag on TV, Garrett, yelled, “He just won!” as the crowd jumped, cheered, and tears rolled down their faces. Garrett said, “One of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my lifetime was to tell everyone he just won. I was on a Zoom call with the NBC production team and the broadcast on my phone was a couple of laps ahead of the TV broadcast.”
The famous “si-reen” rang through the night and Garrett said, “It seemed like the whole town came out to celebrate and listen to the si-reen.”
Watching Elliot win the Cup Series Championship from the Pool Room was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but hopefully, it will happen again.
The Dawsonville Pool Room is located at 9 Bill Elliot Street, Dawsonville, GA. It’s just a 40-minute drive from Gainesville and a 20-minute drive from the Dahlonega and Cumming campuses. Stop by the Pool Room on a Sunday this NASCAR season to get a burger, play pool, and get the real NASCAR and Dawsonville experience.
