Huge pickleball-centric bar and restaurant slated for Nashville area

America's pickleball fascination continues, with yet another new Brentwood facility planned around the sporting phenomenon.

This one, Crush Yard, will soon sign a lease on a 33,000-square-foot space at Brentwood Place on Franklin Road, near Golf Galaxy, Total Wine, Fresh Market and Chick-fil-A. The target opening date is January 2025.

Crush Yard is a pickleball club, but it's also an expansive bar and restaurant that draws on the star power of executive chef Brandon Buck. Buck, a Charleston, South Carolina, native and former executive chef of Middleton Place, will design a menu of what Crush Yard chief marketing officer Andrew Ladden described as "elevated comfort food."

The pickleball venue should be massive, with room for eight courts, a full bar and a lower and mezzanine dining area with seating for 460 people.

It takes high ceilings and plenty of square footage to house the Crush Yard concept, which is why the swiftly growing company is looking to snap up failed grocery and big box stores for new franchise and corporate-owned locations.

The Nashville area should be the site of the third Crush Yard, but the company is in aggressive expansion mode, with a goal of 10 corporate-owned and 20 franchise locations, Ladden said.

"We love the idea of having indoor pickleball available every day of the year," he said.

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Such swift expansion for a business based on a sporting fad begs the question: What happens if people tire of pickleball? Ladden said this is not, in fact, a passing fad.

"It's definitely one of the conversations we had early on in deciding whether we wanted to commit to this," Ladden said. "But we're pretty darn convinced that pickleball ain't going anywhere."

In 2021, pickleball enthralled nearly 5 million players in the U.S., according to the 2022 Sports & Fitness Industry Association.

Add to that the fact that the U.S. has a pickleball court shortage, Ladden said, and you have a recipe for demand. The climate-controlled nature of Crush Yard only sweetens the deal.

"The vast majority of pickleball courts are outdoors, and subject to wind, rain and cold, so indoor courts are a real draw for us," he said.

More to come: Pickleball not souring: What to know about five new locations coming to Nashville

Ladden credited pickleball's ease of access for its massive popularity spike.

"It's not like golf or tennis where you stink for a year before you're good," he said. "You quickly feel a sense of accomplishment."

Not for nothing, hitting the ball also makes a satisfying noise, he said.

"It's a visceral feeling when that plastic ball hits the paddle," he said. "It's the greatest feeling in the world. You feel like you're making such great contact with the ball and, in five or six minutes, you're like, 'That's it, I'm in.'"

Crush Yard will open daily at 11 a.m. and stay open late, until 10 or 11 p.m., depending on the day.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Crush Yard, pickleball facility in Brentwood, planned for 2025