Bounce founder signs lease for 1 Poultry as flagship for Puttshack crazy golf concept
The founder of Bounce ping-pong bars and co-founder of Flight Club darts bars has tapped the City of London for his latest social entertainment venture.
Entrepreneur Adam Breeden, who also founded All Star Lanes bowling, is to open a crazy golf bar in the basement of the iconic 1 Poultry building.
Puttshack is a new crazy golf concept using advanced technology to add additional challenges and prizes to the course. Like Bounce, it will be accompanied by an extensive food and drink offering.
Three Puttshacks are lined up as part of a £15m investment in the brand. The City of London site will be the flagship for the new brand, opening towards the end of this year or early next year.
Speaking to City A.M., Breeden estimated that between £5.5m and £7.5m will go into setting up the 1 Poultry site
It will be the first site inside the Square Mile run by Breeden's company Social Entertainment Ventures, which is the parent company of Bounce.
"For a long period of time the City was a bit of a no man’s land of things to do but also there wasn’t necessarily the market or the understanding that people travel to the City," he said in an interview. "In the last few years certainly there has been a big shift and I think East London’s had a lot to do with this."
He credited the development of Shoreditch with increasing the number of visitors to the City, and said that the opening of Soho House founder Nick Jones's The Ned had proved that consumers will travel to the City for the "right experience".
The company's investment in the City comes at a time of refreshed investment in the Square Mile's hospitality and leisure offering. Brewdog has picked the City for its first ever brewpub, while posh gym group Third Space will open its fifth London site in the City this year.
The first Puttshack is set to open in April this year at Westfield in White City. Another site is also lined up for Intu Lakeside in Essex.
The idea was co-created by the team behind Bounce and the founders of Topgolf, a golf entertainment brand which now has 40 branches around the world.