Written by By
John George – Senior Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal
Oct 17, 2024
The Rite Aid at 3260 N. Broad St. in Philadelphia closed in late 2023.
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Priya Check was troubled last year watching her 23-year-old son Ethan Check search for ajob after graduating college.
“I saw him going on these interviews for nine-to-fi ve jobs and he just seemed souninspired,” she recalled.
Around the same time, she was thinking about the enjoyment their family has playing pickleball and the difficulty they face fi nding an indoor facility to play in during thewinter months. That’s when an idea for a business venture struck her. Priya suggested she and Ethan team up to launch their own facility for the increasingly popular sport.
Over the next year, they worked on their plans for Pickle Place, an indoor pickleball center slated to open in Plymouth Meeting early next year.
The 26,500-square-foot pickleball complex in vacant warehouse space at 1850 N. GraversRoad will feature nine courts plus a smaller warm-up court, a cardio warm-up room, training technology, a players’ lounge, a party and event room, and a pro shop.
The Huntingdon Valley residents’ goal is to open Pickle Place in mid-January, provided they can secure the necessary township approvals in time.
This will be the latest in a growing number of such facilities in the region, which are cropping up as the game continues to gain popularity. An estimated 48.3 million Americans played pickleball, which combines elements of tennis, badmintonand table-tennis, at least once in the past year, according to the Association of Pickleball Professionals.
Racket sports are familiar territory for the Checks.
“We have a big tennis background in our family,” Ethan said.
When he was getting back into the sport two years ago and saw pickleball everywhere, he initially dismissed it as a “gimmicky small version of tennis that people play in the summer, like horseshoes,” he said.
His opinion started to change when he saw big crowds for pickleball at spots he played tennis, where he and his hitting partner were often the only people notplaying pickleball.
“I thought to myself, ‘OK, maybe there is something to this sport,'” he recalled. “The cherry on top came when I was watching ESPN and pickleball came on with more than1,000 people watching in the stands.”
Ethan and his family started playing pickleball soon after.
When his mom proposed her idea, Ethan didn’t need much arm-twisting to get into the pickleball business. A graduate of Babson College, where he earned a degree in business,Ethan has always had an entrepreneurial spirit.
“In seventh grade, I was reselling sneakers,” he said. “By the time I was a sophomore in college, the business was doing six figures.”
Ethan eventually tired of the venture and spent time working with his grandfather in abusiness certifying patients for medical marijuana cards. He also explored another opportunity in the health care fi eld with his other grandfather, and went on some office job interviews before opting to pursue pickleball.
Priya, 51, was looking for her own way back into the business world after taking more than a decade off to raise her three children. She previously worked in health care administration as a practice manager and also owned and operated a since shuttered salad bar eatery in Willow Grove.
“We have similar mindsets about how things should be done,” Priya said of getting into business with her son.
The two also believe they had complementary strengths. Ethan is good at the public-facing aspects of the business like promoting Pickle Place and recruiting investors, while Priya excels behind the scenes. She even designed the center’s logo and came up with the business name.
“We were always talking about how we needed a place to play pickleball, so I thoughtPickle Place,” Priya said.
Ethan said the name led to just one misunderstanding.
“I had one lawyer ask if we were opening a deli,” he said.
Rather than purchase a franchise of an existing pickleball operation, they chose to create their own to give them full control over their business.
The family has raised more than $500,000 for the venture, including investing $250,000of their own money.
When Pickle Place opens, they plan to off er a variety of monthly and annual memberships with diff erent perks, such as renting courts in advance and discounted court time. One perk planned for “premier” members is access to videos of matches.
As of now, a basic membership is priced at $20 a month or $225 for a year. A premier membership is $30 monthly or $325 annually. Members will also have the option of freezing their account for multiple months if they will be out of town for a prolonged period.
Open play for non-members will also be available.
Additionally, Pickle Place expects to hold tournaments as well as corporate events and private parties.
Ethan said fi nding a building was their biggest challenge.
“I think we underestimated how difficult it would be,” he said. “It took us six or seven months to find this place. We probably looked at 25 places that didn’t work for one reason or another. Either the columns were too close together or the landlord wasn’t interested in pickleball.”
Pickle Place is joining a burgeoning pickleball scene in the Philadelphia region, which has seen a half-dozen indoor pickleball-only centers open from the Main Line to the Jersey Shore. Another half-dozen are about to open, under construction or being planned in towns including in Lansdale, Newtown and Blackwood. Numerous local tennis and fitness clubs are also catering to the pickleball crowd by adding courts or expanding the use of their spaces.
Despite that, Ethan said he doesn’t think the region is close to any kind of saturation point.
“I think this location is a really good spot,” he said. “We’re 20 or more minutes away from those other [pickleball-only] facilities.”
