Largo’s Pickle & Pint rides the indoor pickleball wave

Pickle & Pint, an indoor pickleball facility with a restaurant and bar, recently opened in Largo.

The 32,000-square-foot, family-friendly sports venue isn’t the first in the Pinellas County area – there’s the slightly smaller Dink House Pickleball Club, which also is in Largo.

More indoor pickleball courts are in the works, including St. Pete Athletic Paddle & Social, the Pickleball Kingdom franchise and the Dill Dinkers franchise.  

These recent investments in the sport demonstrate its skyrocketing popularity.

“As of right now, we’re doing really well and very grateful for the community to support us and everyone else that has been coming day to day,” said Zachary Weir, co-owner of Pickle & Pint.

Weir, his wife and father-in-law decided to start a pickleball business after recognizing its impact in the local community.

Co-owners Zachary Weir, left, and his father-in-law, Roth Block.

Weir believes Largo was the right choice for the facility.

“The reason why we wanted Largo was because it’s kind of in the middle of all of the major cities, like Clearwater, Tampa, St. Pete,” he explained. The recently-opened Gateway Expressway helps delivers players to the venue’s door at 13200 S. Belcher Road.

His background in bar management helped inspire the idea.

Pickle & Pint has 12 indoor pickleball courts as well as other games, including ping pong (table tennis) and cornhole. 

Market research in the area was key, Weir said.

“We did some research on how many pickleball courts there were outdoors and kinda see how busy they are. We drove around a lot and staked out the outdoor areas and what times are busy, temperatures, the different seasons and how they would be factors.”

This helped them realize that indoor courts could allow guests to play at any time no matter the weather conditions. 

Adding the food and drink element was a way to stand apart, he said.

“We also looked at places outside of Florida. Our inspiration was Chicken N Pickle and then Rally Pickleball, in the North Carolina area. They have places there that do kitchen and bars and stuff like that.”

Selecting a building for the facility was not difficult.

“We’ve always had the mindset of if it was meant to be it’d be, we found this place, and it actually was the only place we toured in person and we actually had other franchises that wanted the place, and the owners of the building decided to go with us,” he explained.

Pickle & Pint has a variety of memberships customers can purchase, including the P&P Plus, P&P Pro, and P&P Prestige plans, with each offering different discounts for court rentals, events and leagues.

Customers do not need a membership to have access to Pickle & Pint’s facility, however – it’s possible to play for free. A complimentary P&P pass gives guests the ability to reserve courts three days in advance, but they don’t receive any discounts on the price.

As of now, Pickle & Pint just has the one location. Expansion could be in the cards in the future, depending on the Largo facility’s long-term success.

“If we hit the ground running here and do really well here, [expansion] could be something that we could potentially do in the future,” Weir explained. “But I think our focus is just to get this one to where we want it to be.”

For hours, reservations, memberships and other details, visit the Pickle & Pint website.