"Pickleball is a sport you can take as seriously as you want to," said Nathan Talbot from the middle of his cavernous SoDo building in September. Talbot took it very seriously this year, converting a former liquor warehouse into Picklewood, a new country club–themed sports venue open this week.

Think Top Golf, but with paddles. The 25,000-square-foot facility is home to seven indoor, with four more courts outside, each of which can host up to 12 people as spectators or rotating players. And in some ways, the space is dead serious: Groups pay $40 to $80 per hour for court time, and on Friday and Saturday nights the space is 21-and-over only. Picklewood will eventually host competitions.

Talbot, who partnered with chef Ethan Stowell for the project, played a lot of pickleball in PE back in his Lakeside School student days, and he has seen the Bainbridge-born sport explode in recent decades. One study estimated the sport's market at $1.5 billion in 2025, with participation more than tripling in recent years. Anyone who's tried to secure a court in Seattle (or argue with the tennis community over space) knows pickleball is a big deal.

And given the sport's popularity, players expect more than just a concrete floor and a net. Talbot says they spent more than $600,000 on insulation to make sure the noise of seven indoor games going at once didn't get overwhelming. The ceiling had to be carefully planned so white balls flying through the air didn't get lost when a player looked up.

But Picklewood is also just having fun. The design inspiration was 1980 golf comedy Caddyshack; the name comes from the movie's setting, Bushwood Country Club. One of the space's new logos has the movie's dancing gopher holding a pickleball racket. Though the decor is late-1970s preppy chic—argyle patterns, ringer tees in the pro shop—this country club does not require membership.

Players book individual courts, and pros give lessons. Various workout periods combine the racket sport with cardio. Talbot even plans a padel court eventually; that game is like a blend of tennis, pickleball, and racquetball, all within an enclosed space.

Picklewood also boasts an Ethan Stowell restaurant. The chef himself is an investor in the club, though it's not an arm of the Ethan Stowell Restaurant group (despite the fact that ESR commissary is located in the same industrial complex.) For Picklewood, Stowell eyed the kind of food you'd eat while bragging about your last round of golf: a chicken club sandwich, a crab roll. Many dishes use briny flavors to salute the pickle theme, like a pickle aioli.

"We're going to ham it up a bit," says Stowell, "a little bit kitschy." He wants to eventually salute Caddyshack's famous "Baby Ruth in the pool" scene with, perhaps, a panna cotta dessert topped with the signature candy bar. (If you've seen it, you know the joke.)

With outdoor firepits and a raised mezzanine with games for kids, the whole place is supposed to feel as goofy as Caddyshack—it may be destined for corporate Christmas events and bachelor parties. Though it's much smaller than Seattle's new Side Out Tsunami space, which opened in September with 26 indoor courts, Picklewood adds to the city's growing number of places to play.

"People say it's a new concept," says Talbot, "but bowling alleys have been around for 200 years." Plus, the new space has no neighbors to get bothered by the sound of bouncing balls and pickleball parties. It's a reminder that no matter how funny the name or the paddles might be, pickleball remains serious business.