COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – The hustle and bustle of a popular Midlands restaurant has a secret room.
Above the smells of homemade Italian food where locals in Columbia love to dine, one of the managers takes a break by brushing up on a different skill. Tripp Roche taking his love for table tennis to the dinner table and sharing that with customers at Villa Tronco.
“We’re having some of the best players in the city train need and we need room for that,” said Tripp Roche, the founder of Columbia Pong Table Tennis & manager at Villa Tronco.
While Italian food is being prepared downstairs at Villa Tronco in Columbia, people are enjoying a game of table tennis upstairs.
“This room really did not look the way it did (now) either,” Roche said, “There was storage everywhere and you had about three feet of space on each side to play and now we’ve kind of cleaned it up because
Tripp Roche got into playing table tennis thanks to his grandfather, Joe Roche. As of Feb. 7, Tripp is now ranked the top player in South Carolina under the age of 21.
“I really do love this game; I came from tennis, and I found this sport,” Roche said, “I really fell in love with it right off the bat and I’ve really played every single day, two years ago since I started.”
Joe and Tripp are looking for their next challenger, and say any winner’s meal is on the house.
“If there’s any challengers out there, come out to 1213 Blanding Street,” Roche said. “It’s been really fun because we train every night of the week (here) and it’s gotten me really, really good.”
Roche helped bring the first table tennis championships in nearly three decades back to the Palmetto State. The tournament is happening this Saturday at St Andrews Park in Columbia.
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