Cups and balls in a restaurant? No way man, just because you saw a dvd called table hopping cups and balls does not mean it is good for restaurants. Think of tricks that will fit nicely in your pockets, and can be performed standing up, look into micheal ammar material, everything he does is standing up.
Think of few routines you can do with a deck of cards, a few routines with coins, a routine with a normal object such as a pen or a napkin, a gimmick, and a packet trick. That should fill you with many good nights and lots of happy customers.

Did i ever state that you should only walk arround with cups? Try something that fits in your pockets??? You can EASILY put cups in a jacket pocket, EASILY. In my opinion, cups seem like a great thing for table hopping, they wouldn't make a DVD called tablehopping cups and balls if they sucked for it. It'd be like making a dvd called sponge balls at kids shows if sponges sucked at kids shows which they don't

i don't really know much about restaurant magic (which is why i am reading the posts), but can't you just bring like a tiny tray with you or something like like a folding table (or tv tray) with you to each table. If so then can't you do cups and balls on your tray or table?

Thanks,
Ben Winter

Do you know why they would produce a DVD like that. TO MAKE MONEY.
I personally think that cups and balls is to big for a table hoping at a restaurant. Other than putting a deck of cards or putting a single card down you should not use any table space. Taking up to much table space makes the spectators uncomfortable. Also it is distracting to the spectators.
Over all I think you should keep the magic in your and the spectators hands.
I love the cups and balls, but I save them for the stand up shows.

-Adam Michael

The amount of time anyone's been on penguin does not affect how good he/she is.

I do a chop-cup routine using a jigger and a nitted ball from the cups and balls. Eventually I'll get a fake olive to replace the ball. The ending produces three wine bottle corks. It works well in the restaurant.
Plus, it's kind of a "corky" trick.

Chop-cup, from what i hear, good restraunt material. Like the ender, and the pun goes good with it, by any chance do you use that while you're perfroming, (the pun).

Actually, the pun just came out one day while I was performing. After the third cork production, I said, "Well that's a corky trick." It gets a good laugh.

Not bad not bad I like it! Don't worry i won't use it though.

Hey. Go for it. I mimmick comedy that I like. If you like it, then use it for whatever you can use it for. Besides, you're in MN and I'm in VA. I'll never Know.

Thank you cakkid, thats what i was trying to say, the cups and balls is very distracting because it is more of a parlour style trick so other customers would get a little irritated. Chop cup, yeah that would work but if i were to perform the chop cup i would just do the un gimmicked Weanie beanie.

Yeah, I'm using a real Jigger. If you don't know what that is, it's the two-sided measuring device for mixing drinks. So it is ungimmicked. Works ready well for restaurants.

Chop cups are so much easier without gimmicks, check out early ammar volume 2, weanie beanie is a chop cup that uses just a regular can. It follows the regular chop cup routine and ends with the two final loads but it has a big kicker, this is a metal can you are using so it has a seal and at the end the metal seal is back on.

That's interesting that you feel that way. I like to browse the cafe forums occasionally, and the pros in the comedy section consider it practically sinful just to use one line that you heard somewhere else. I think that that is a terrible rule. It's more of a complement than anything else to the inventer of the line to use it in your show.