Groundbreaking, The Picklr Fort Collins

All right, this is our first time recording on location at a groundbreaking ceremony for the pickler. Yes, I mean, we were invited out here. This is pretty awesome. Yeah. So this is a groundbreaking moment for us at a groundbreaking for the pickler. It is. It is. We're out here in Fort Collins. And we're standing in front of the dirt, the dirt where the pickler in Fort Collins will eventually be. I believe it opens in November. Yeah. Wow. They got, it looks like they're moving though. There's some dirt moved. There's some dirt moved. Yeah. So this is awesome. And yeah. Yeah. And hopefully after everything happens, we can set up our net, maybe play on the dirt for a quick second and we won't get kicked out like we did in Bucky's. Yeah. Yeah. We have a little story and you'll hear a little bit more about some Bucky time. Bucky time. All right. We'll talk to you guys soon. Soon. Thank you for tuning in. I'm Greg. I'm Mike. And we are the Pickleballers Next Door. We are for the Joes and not the pros. Your court, our court. Welcome to the Pickleballers Next Door. Hey, how you doing, Greg? Good. I'm good. How you doing, Mike? Well, this is an interesting day, huh? It is. It is. We're here at the groundbreaking of the pickler in Fort Collins. Yeah. It is the very first pickler in Fort Collins. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is. And this is the very first pickler ever to be built from the ground up. Ground up. We're very excited to be have been invited to this. Yeah. This is, I mean, this is something big. I mean, especially for Fort Collins. I can't even imagine what this facility is going to look like because I've seen the other ones that they've done, which are beautiful, that they've built into other pre, what would you call it? What I mean by that is, over a hundred people are here right now. Yeah. Just watching this ceremony. I mean, council members, regular folks from the community, pickleball players, franchise owners. Oh, yeah. The founder? Yeah. Oh, one of the founders, Austin. What a, what a nice guy. We're going to actually head out there. And if you can hear in the background, that's, that's Ricky. Oh, yeah. You heard Ricky. So. So, yeah. They just used the shovels to hit the, throw some dirt around. Yeah. I got some of that in my eye, so I'm taking it home with me. I had to wipe it out of my teeth. But they also did a pickleball paddle and ball ceremony where they have golden paddles and they hit balls. Yeah. Which is kind of cool. It is. It is. I mean, they're just taking pickleball to another level. They are. Yeah. I mean, this, this is, this whole thing has been pretty incredible. So we're all going to head up to the bar up the, up the hill and get some beers and see how that goes. That's how that goes. And, but, yeah, what a place. I mean, we're, we're just excited. I mean, we're, pickballer and the pickler and us are just seem to be one and one. Hey, we're joined by one of the ambassadors for the Fort Collins Pickler. Awesome. Awesome. What's your name? My name is Matthew Kaploon. Nice. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too, you guys. Thank you. Yeah. Of course. So how old are you? I'm 14. 14. And you play juniors, obviously. Yes. And how's that going for you? It's going really good. I'm looking at a couple of tournaments up in Florida and Texas, but I'm really excited for them. Nice. So what level are you at? Um, I'd say more like an advanced level junior. Okay. Like, yeah. Cool. I was at the, um, I was at the, why can't I think of it? The masters. Yes. And I watched a bunch of juniors play. Yes. And I don't want to play them. Yeah. They're hard to play. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's some stories already out here that I was telling you that people have said, we got to be careful playing you. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. The juniors are really good, challenging. I think it's really fun to play adults as a junior and they're like, I just lost to a kid. Yeah. Which is fun. And you're so fast. Thank you. It's one of the, um, the things I love most about pickleball is you can get beat by a 12 year old and get beat by an 80 year old in the same day. In the same day. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. So how long have you been playing? Um, for about three years, I think. Oh, nice. Oh, wow. So how long have you been playing? Where did you learn? Um, in the streets. Um, during COVID. I was at Sierra. You're a street guy. Oh yeah. That's cool. That's cool. Um, so what tournaments have you played in? So I played in a junior PPAs, which is just like PPAs and then I played in a couple of local tournaments. Cool. Cool. Nice. Are you going to come down to the, um, the Rocky mountain championship? Of course. Heck yeah. Heck yeah. That's cool. Yeah. We'll see you there. We'll see you there. And we'll do a little podcast from there, too. For sure. Okay. Yeah. And we'll, we'll hit you up to get you back on. Heck yeah. Yeah. So, um, you're excited that you're an ambassador for this place? I'm so excited. I was an ambassador for the Loveland one and that's like 20 minute jog away from the house, my house. It's much closer here. I'm really excited for the 10 courts. It's going to be fantastic. And then, you know, it's a place to practice for free. Oh yeah. You're only going to get better. I can get my friends to come in, right? Exactly. I'm excited to join. Do you have, do you have people, friends that you play with right now? I have some friends that I play with, um, they can't all drive down to the Loveland. So we always play like twin silos. Okay. Like it snows. I'm like, we got to go to the pickers sometime. Right. Definitely. And then is it, is it windy up here a lot? Uh, not very much, but during the summer and winter, it's a little cold out here today. Yes. It's cold. I thought it was going to be warm. I did too. I didn't even bring a jacket. Yeah. Yeah. But I have a Bucky's onesie in the car. Oh, those are awesome. Yeah. And we're going to be on our next episode. Yeah. We just played in them in the parking lot there. Oh, that's fun. And they kicked us out. Yeah. They did kick us out. Oh really? Yeah. They did. It's a little dangerous with a net in the middle of the parking lot. Yeah. And I bet you guys were winning points though. We did win some points. We played two EMTs. EMTs. So if we got hurt, they would just take care of us. Right. Yeah. For sure. Don't worry about it. We have EMTs here. Yeah. Awesome. So what's your goal? For sure to go pro. Yeah. Go pro. Thank you. I'm friends with some pros and they just say, just be patient and drill, which is really one of the main things. Yeah. Drilling's the big thing, right? It really is. That nobody likes to do. No. Yeah. How many dinks? It's the hard part. Dink, dink, dink, dink, dink. 10,000 dinks in a row. There you go. Yeah. That's it. That's it. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I remember one time, my mom got me up at like 6 a.m. She's like, Matt, we got to go drink. Dink. Come on. Oh. What a good mom. She's looking out for you. Yeah. She's pushing your career. Yep. Yeah. That's support. For sure. Yeah. That's awesome. We'd love to listen to us. We'll get on our podcast. Sure. Anytime. And we'd love to interview some more. For sure. And we're going to be out here when the grand opening is. Yes. That sounds fantastic. I'll be there. Oh, yeah. We know you'll be here. Yeah. And then we'll see you at the RMC in June. For sure. Yeah, please. Sounds great, you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good day, guys. Thank you so much. Thank you. This is one of the co-founders of the Pickler Overall. Overall co-founder. Oh, yeah. Not a franchise owner. All over the place. All over the place. All over. I love it. Yes. How are you today? Oh, this is awesome. Yeah. I mean, this is a great day to do a groundbreaking. I've never done a groundbreaking event like with a shovel and a hard hat. You look good, too. Oh, yeah. And they actually said I get to keep the hard hat. Oh! You don't get to keep the shovel. I wish. That really was awesome. I'll try to get on the plane. But I was going to say, how would you get that on the plane? I would try. I would try. I would try. Put it in your life hat. I would. A wooden life hat. Backpack. Yeah. Backpack. Yeah, for sure. That's awesome. And then I saw the golden paddle. Yeah. Got the golden paddle. I've never done that before either for a groundbreaking. Yeah. That's cool. This is cool. I mean, this is a cool thing because this is a 27,000 square foot facility. Wow. With 10 courts. I mean, that's like it's perfectly planned for a pickleball facility. Yeah. So this will be a really, really special place to come play. And you know what? You got pizza here, beer. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got pizza here, beer. Oh, there's everything. Ice cream. What a place. Like, you can literally spend your whole day here. And you can birth with a midwife right across the parking lot. Yeah. You don't even have to leave. Wife's having a baby. There you go. Yeah. This, what a location though. Really is. And people can actually walk in. There's houses right here too. Oh, yeah. You can totally just walk over here. Just walk over and play some pickleball. You know, we got to really pitch the dads that are over here with their, you know, wives. Oh, yeah. All stressed out. Until they're ready. Like, come play pickleball. Come on. Right. And they'll give you a text message. What a great facilities you're building though. I mean, even the ones you're fitting in the pre-existing buildings, I mean, they're gorgeous. And you're still not, you're not sacrificing to get an extra court. No, we never do that. We will never, we will never sacrifice our quality of courts to squeeze an extra court in there. You know, we'd rather have an extra space for a community to sit down and gather. Maybe like a skinny singles court or like a dink court. But we'll never, yeah, squeeze an extra court just to get that extra court in there. Do any of your picklers have skinny singles courts? We do. We have a few. No kidding. Yeah, we have a few that have skinny singles. Wow. It's kind of fun. And some, you know, dink courts. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. Again, plenty of room. Lighting's beautiful. The whole place is beautiful. I love this too. The showers. Yeah. I hate to say it. I go to Thornton and I got to get to a meeting, but I got to play my three hours of pickleball. Maybe four. But I need my shower. For sure. Which that is the, that is like the greatest thing. So if you're a businessman, this is the best thing ever. Absolutely. So whoever just came up with that, probably you. Yeah. Well, I mean, our first location had showers. You know what? It wasn't us. It was our landlord. We said, I don't think we need them. Let's not spend the money. He's like, you know what? I'm just going to pay for it for you guys because you guys need showers. That credit goes to our first landlord. Now it's incorporated in everything. Thank you so much. Yeah. I'm telling you, when you're a businessman and everybody uses it, it's awesome. So what's the future look like? It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. If you're a businessman and everybody uses it, it's awesome. So what's the future look like? Yeah. I mean, the future is crazy. Just like pickleball's future is crazy. Pickler is kind of on the same trajectory. We have 43 clubs open right now. Wow. By the end of the year, we should be somewhere in the 80s. Wow. You know, maybe 90s. It just depends on construction schedules. You know, we'll probably, after that, we'll probably do anywhere from 75 to 100 locations a year for a few years until we get to 500 plus. And you have a lot of air miles. Oh, yeah. A lot of air miles. Yeah. Any plans for international? Yeah. We actually, our first international location will be open by Q3 of this year in Canada. Oh, in Canada. That's awesome. Where about? I think that one's going to be Winnipeg and then somewhere near Toronto, the next one. Oh, nice. I'm sorry. I should have said we're a boot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So whether that's a, you know, and then our, we just sold Japan actually. No kidding. So Japan is the next. And then hopefully after that, we may see Australia, New Zealand. So yeah. Yeah. That'd be really nice. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're, we're so grateful to, to talk. I know we're going to fly out and see you at your own facility. Oh, for sure. We're looking forward to it. Oh yeah. Heck yes. And we appreciate you. We are looking forward to it too. The Pickler has really taken us in. The Pickler is really just, you know, we've just become like one with you guys. Well, I mean, from day one, we and George started this as pickleball fanatics, not as business guys. Yeah. This wasn't a money grab for us. This was a, you know, we, we love pickleball. We want to see the growth of pickleball, especially in the youth. George has six kids. I have three. And so we are really pushing the youth movement of pickleball. And at the end of the day, like I still am best friends with those first, you know, first members that we had at our first location. And, and if you go through my contact list, they all say, you know, dot PV by all these people. It's crazy how I sectioned that out on my phone and now those are like my main contact. Yeah. And then you have two people named or three people named Mike PB and you're like, oh man, which one am I calling? It's a rough life. It is. And I love it. I mean, we just talked to one of your, uh, one of your, uh, what did they call it? Your ambassador. Junior ambassador. Junior ambassador right here. Matt. Just loving it. And you, I mean, that's just awesome. Yeah. Mark our words. That's the next Ben Johns. Give him a few years. Absolutely. Yeah. He, I think he's, he, his mom said he plays at a five, five level and I'm like, no, I don't want to, I want to play him, but I don't want to play him. We all have our fair fair share of stories of getting beat by a little kid, you know? So yeah. Yeah. I love his story. Right. It can be play a 12 year old and get beaten the same day by an 80 year old. Yeah. Yeah. I've been body bagged by an 80 year old in Connecticut. Yeah. And that's why, that's why it is. And that's why when I body bag an 80 year old, everyone's like, dude, what's your problem? I was like, dude, you don't even know I've been body bagged by like multiple 80 year olds. So for sure. What goes around comes around. Love what you guys are doing. Thank you. You guys are all about building community. We are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for being here. And I mean, like I said, we can't wait to come visit you and play some pickleball with you. Yes, for sure. That'll be a blast. I want to see bags. Yes. Actually look at his license. That's actually my license plate. Body bagger. You're talking about some of the players that you're played and you have the marks. Guess who has those marks? Mike. It's going to be fun. Yeah, definitely. All right, Austin. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for being on and doing everything with the Pickler and try to get rising in. It's an amazing try to get some rest because it sounds like you've got a lot of flights in front of you. Yeah, for sure. Well, I'll see you guys on the court. Awesome. Yes. Thank you so much. We are here with Leslie. She's the owner and operator of Loveland and this new Fort Collins location that's coming soon. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm so excited. Yes, we are as well. Yeah. What a great showing. Great people. This is incredible. So how did you get involved with Pickleball to start? So my husband and I started during COVID because we didn't have anything to do. We're waiting, kind of wondering what kind of athletic adventure we could do without wearing a mask. Right. So we went outside and started playing and fell in love with it. I became a founder member in Loveland and then when the ownership changed, I was like, okay, yeah, I want to be a part of this and I want to be part of the business part of it and just dove in. Well, now you're building your own, which is going to be incredible. Just the things you were telling me about with the roll up doors and I mean, possibly later outside some courts. Not right now. They're coming. How does it feel to be the first one to ever be built from ground up? It's kind of surprising when I heard it because I mean, I'm all for repurposing some of these older buildings and grocery stores and Kmart's or whatever that are going out or building into bigger spaces. And that's what Loveland does and that's what most of the Picklers do. And then when Gino came with this space and it was like, okay, we can make it exactly the way you want it. We can have it, you know, designed how, whatever you can vision and we're like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. I'm in. Yes. Totally. And a community that it's built around right here with the restaurants and homes that can walk right here. I mean, it's, it's incredible. And we just met and had on one of your ambassadors, Matt. Yes. Yeah. He's a little mad. He's not shy, which I appreciate. I appreciate that. And not in a bad way, not in a bad way, but I love that he's ready to go and speak out. It's awesome. Yeah. He's, he's moving up. You can already, he's going to be, he's going to be a great one for you. Well, and he plays in the junior PPA. He's been doing a lot of tournaments. They travel quite a bit. He practices a ton in Loveland, but they live closer here. Right. So his mom and him will both be ambassadors here for Fort Collins and to start getting the younger crowd in, getting his friends in, teaching them to play. I mean, we got to keep building the sport. Yeah. That's so cool. I love that. And so after this one's built, what, what, where are you going? What does it look like for you? Is there going to be a third? I don't think so. Not for my husband and I. We are two and done. It's a lot of work and we didn't, you know, it's kind of like what was being said today is that we thought that it would be, Oh, you know, this is easy. You just, what, what can you do here? But, you know, I felt like I really wanted to build a community and that's what was a little bit missing in Loveland that there just wasn't the connection. People would come in and play and leave. And I'm like, Nope, I want them to come in early, sit, converse, play and stay. And so we just tried to really turn it on, you know, kind of upside down and, and tried some new things. The Loveland community was just amazing and very welcoming and it does feel more community based now and friendship based rather than, it's kind of like what pickleball, when we all started. Right. Absolutely. You know, and that's the goal of our podcast too, is to bring people together, love it more. Right. And pickleball is already pretty inclusive, but we want it to bring it more. We want the five O's when they end up playing with a four O to like, you know, reel it in, suck it up a little bit, play with them, work on a shot, move on. Yeah. I know because when I started, if you started, we started about four, I started about four years ago and nobody would play with you if they were above, you know, and why? You know, they just tell me, well, would you earn your stripes? And I'm like, what stripes? I just want to play pickleball. I know. I know. And when we started playing, I mean, you'd have your phone filled with Pickleball Sally, Pickleball Julie, Pickleball, you know, everyone's name was Pickleball, and that's what I wanted back because when I started playing before this ownership group took over the Loveland Pickler, it wasn't that. I mean, it was very exclusive, like, you know, it was, oh, what's your duper? Very clicky. Yeah. Yeah. And now, I mean, there's still some of that. And I know people have different goals that they want to go, you know, try to work in their tournament time. And I know I get that. And the Pickler is all about where pros are made. That's kind of the saying. And so one thing that we talk about, it's not about becoming a professional, it's just about becoming better. And so how can you be better each time you go out there? I think you call it crack the egg. You give so many more options and the people that are just really scared to go any further, you're given all those options, all the fun things, the tournaments, the different plays that you get. This all comes with your membership. Yes. And it's incredible. So I think it's these people that want more, but don't want this pro coming up and hit you with the ball. Yes. Yeah. And that's... So I work at the Aurora one. Yes. I work at the front desk. And JP is the owner-operator there. And I've come to find that every single owner-operator has pretty much the same goal in mind, is to get the community to a better place. I'm so happy to hear that. Period. I'm happy. And that's why I think we love the Pickler so much. Oh, absolutely. It's because we're the same way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Thornton too. I mean, it's a family. Yeah. I mean, they are just so wonderful. Yes. The dad's there. The dad, I can't get on the court. He will talk to me. I know. My hour will be up. I kind of thought maybe that's a ploy. There you go. That's not a ploy. But I don't pay by the hour. So I thought, well, no. But what a great family. I mean, I really believe he's right. You're building a community of good people that want to bring the community together. Well, and that's how we started. And that's how I wanted to continue. I'm never going to be playing on TV. I'm not ever going to be getting a trophy. I mean, I can't even get on the trophy, the stand, the medal stand in my own Pickler. So, you know, and I can pick who my partners are and I still can't get on the podium. It's tough. It's tough. And I heard a... And I heard a... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. But I heard a stat that pickleball has grown in the past three years 315%. And it makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense why it's so much harder now to medal than it was before. Yeah, it's moving so fast. I mean, you... It felt like it took me forever to move up. Yes. And now these people are moving up so fast. Yes. And I think what you offer even makes it move faster because they have options to learn dinking. That's right. They have... I love like live ball. Yes. And it's so fun. I was telling him about it. They throw a ball out, hit it this way and run, you know. I know. I know. And seeing for the... For your women listeners too. I mean, if people don't think pickleball is cardio, they really got to think differently. Yeah. Agreed. In two years, I lost 50 pounds when I started playing. I was pretty heavy. And I was like, wow, I mean, I needed to do something and get out. And it was something I enjoyed doing. And plus it was social. And then the... When you're doing something you love, it's just easy to start losing weight. Right. When you... That too, right? But when you're doing something you love, it's not a job. That's right. So I've noticed... I've worked only two shifts at the Pickler so far and gone. The shifts are gone. And I'm just like, whoa, where do they go? I know. I know. And then I sit around for like two and a half hours talking to people and I'm like, gosh, dang, I need to go home. Well, I know. And my business partners are like, you know, don't spend your time in the front desk, Leslie. You know, you can do other things. Go talk... And I'm like, I love the front desk. Right. That's where you see all the action. That's where you see everybody. You see everybody. You talk to everyone. You see the smiles. You do see the community. And that's what I want. And I'm so happy to hear that JP's doing that. I know Ray's doing it. Thornton's doing it. Thornton's doing it. So that's really important. Yes. I was going to say, we should be a little skinnier, but people invite us to eat a lot and play pickleball. I heard. I heard. You guys go to the cool spots where there's a lot of food. Yeah. We do. If you ever go to Pickle Con in Kansas City, Missouri, there's a place out there and Char Bar. I know. You told me. Oh my gosh. We're waiting. We're counting. We're going out there. We're going to be there in August again. Char Bar, here we come. We've got to play a lot more pickleball before we get there. Yeah. Well, it's probably good I have the job I have because my age, I need to keep the weight off and I'm good. Same. But I want to be, I want to go see Char Bar. I want to go see these places, but I'm just thankful you guys were here and very grateful that you spend your time at the Pickler and you enjoy playing and we're going to get you a court tonight. I love it. I want to play. I love it. Dang it. Yep. Well, thank you so much. Yes. Thank you. This is, I mean, another great person and we'll be here when you open. I know. Heck yeah. Yeah. I know you will be. I can't wait. Leslie. Thank you so much. Thank you for being with us, Leslie. Have a great night. Bye. I just want to say thank you to A Sweet Sip for supporting the podcast. A Sweet Sip is a very delicious CBD drink, non-alcoholic, four great flavors. It helps me take the edge off when I'm going to play in a pickleball tournament. If you want to get some, check them out at drinkasweetsip.com.