Welcome to the Turlock Texas HoldEm Poker Room, where passers-by can glance through that plate glass and see up to 60 people at the green felt tables any time of day or night.
"I tell the guys, 'If you're hiding from your wife, this is not the place to be,'" owner Joe Fernandez said.
He was joking when he said that, but he is serious about how he set up the business, which opened in June at 270 W. Main St. He said it is far-removed from the old image of card rooms — dim places frequented mostly by men.
"Now we have the wives come with them," he said.
Texas HoldEm Players interviewed on two occasions last week said the atmosphere at the downtown club is fine by them.
"Joe runs a clean ship," said Ken Myers, owner of a ministorage and laundry business in Delhi. "He allows no scuffling, no foul language, and you have a lot of business people. It's not like the card rooms of years ago."
Fernandez credits the widened appeal of poker to the recent televising of major tournaments on ESPN and other cable channels.
"We have police officers, doctors, lawyers," he said. "It's not like it used to be."
Customers can join a game by buying $10 or $20 worth of chips, depending on time of day, and they can win as much as $1,500 on a lucky visit, Fernandez said. The house gets $3 from each pot.
The place is small compared with many of the 119 card rooms licensed by the state, but it is busy. It runs 24 hours a day and employs 35 dealers and floormen, most of them full time. They wear black ties on white shirts, and black vests and slacks.
"You come in here, you think you're in Vegas, you think you're in Reno," Fernandez said. "Your hear the click of the chips. It's relaxing."
Unlike a Nevada casino, there's no smoking or alcoholic drinks at the Turlock room. The rules even bar criticism of the dealer or fellow players.
Sgt. Matt Speckman, spokesman for Turlock Police Services, said the only complaint from neighbors was about a few customers drinking near their cars. Fernandez quickly put a stop to it, Speckman said.
Here's a reason just to concentrate on the cards: Customers will play in the World Series of Poker, set for June and July in Las Vegas, if they win any of 10 qualifying tournaments at the Turlock room. Fernandez plans to pay the $10,000 entry fee for each of them. He also plans to send three top players each year to the World Poker Tour, which is held at various sites and has a $25,000 fee.
The Turlock Poker Room joined several others in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, including Mike's Card Casino in Oakdale, the membership-only Empire Sportsmen's Association in Modesto, Casino Real in Manteca, and Poker Flats and the Gold Sombrero Card Room in Merced. Black Oak Casino near Tuolumne City offers poker and several other games.
The favored kind of poker in Turlock is Texas HoldEm, made popular by the cable shows. Each player gets two cards that only they see. The dealer then lays out five more, which all the players combine with their original two in seeking the best five-card hand.
"You have to learn to read players," Fernandez said. "You have to have that sixth sense — 'Are they bluffing you? Do they really have that hand?'"
Customer Lisa Jacobs of Turlock, a social worker for the Creative Alternatives youth program, came for Ladies Night on Thursday and turned her $20 buy-in into $80.
"The hardest part is knowing when to get up and leave," she said after getting up to leave.
"The challenge — I think that's what brings them," said customer Dennis Simar, who in the 1980s ran a card room in Merced and a defunct one in Turlock. "And times are good now. People have more money than they ever have had before."
He acknowledged that some players are addicted to gambling, but not the vast majority.
"I would say that 95 percent, more than that, are not playing with their household money — just extra money they are using for entertainment," Simar said.
Fernandez said that if someone calls and asks if a gambling-addicted spouse is playing, the staff will show the player the door.
"We are not going to feed an addiction," he said.
For Texas HoldEmplayers interviewed last week, poker is a harmless diversion.
"It's a nice social time," said Dennis Nichols of Merced, another Creative Alternatives social worker. "For the $20 that I spend in this place, I can go to the movies and get some popcorn, or I can come here and enjoy this camaraderie and competition."
He added, "I could walk away from here with more money. I couldn't walk away from the movies with more money."