Top Golf
In the previous Hooked On Blog article the opening of a new Top Golf location in the Salt Lake City area was announced. Top Golf is a very successful business model, a “Dave and Busters with a driving range” sort of gig. The atmosphere is one of hot wings, hack golf swings, and flowing rivers of alcohol.
A great business model indeed, but will it fly in Utah?
Utah isn’t just another state. It is planet all its own. As a lifelong non-Mormon resident of Utah I’ve got some insight and comments which Top Golf may have not considered in their Utah location’s business plan. I’ll attempt to pen them in an entertaining top 10 list, without ruffling too many feathers with the local predominant religion.
Ah hell with it. Never mind. Let’s poke some fun…
Top 10 Hurdles Top Golf’s Utah Location Will Face
- 3.2% beer: We Utahns are not “adult” enough to drink beer as strong as the rest of the world. Our legislature has our backs though! Next year the new “wipe the citizen’s asses for them” bill will be passed too!
- Green jello: I hope Top Golf has a great green jello recipe. That nasty stuff is popular here amongst the Utahns. Make a few extra bucks by putting shredded coconut inside. It’s an all-out barf fest!
- Cheap patrons: Top Golf’s servers should have a second job. Utahns are notoriously bad tippers, if they tip at all.
- Black market booze runs to Evanston, Wyoming: IF Top Golf gets a liquor licence (see #5), I hope they’ve factored lower profits on booze sales into their business plan. The state runs the booze here. Citizens as well as businesses who have liquor licences must buy from the state and it costs far more than in neighboring states. Top Golf could do like the rest of us heathens: make a monthly top secret drive up to Evanston, Wyoming and fill the car up with cheap booze. Just hope to hell you don’t get caught by the highway patrol. Oh, and pick me up some bottle rockets and throw $10 on the lottery for me while you’re up there.
- Liquor licence: There are a fixed number of liquor licences available and all sorts of funky laws and regulations involved in getting one. Top Golf should be brushed up on the ever-changing, ever-bizarre Utah liquor laws. You know, do the macarena and recite shakespeare in latin backwards. Also, make sure the Top Golf location isn’t within 98 square miles of a Mormon ward house or no booze licence for you.
- Extra highchairs and booster seats: Utahns looooove to procreate. The average children per household is 17 here in Utah, not to be confused with the number of wives. When families come with all their babies (and wives), Top Golf had better have enough highchairs and booster seats ready to roll.
- Ice cream: Does Top Golf serve ice cream in their current locations? One SURE way to assure profitability in Utah is sell ice cream. Lots of it. Bank on it.
- Snow: We get snow here in Utah, usually quite a bit. It’s damn cold here for half the year too. The Utah Top Golf location must have some kind of heated bays or enclosed structure or there will be NO customers in the winter!
- LOTS of appetizers: We have a very strange law here in Utah with regards to selling any drinks stronger than 3.2% beer (yes I know that comes as a surprise). It is illegal for a restaurant to serve alcohol stronger than 3.2% beer unless the consumer is ordering food. Most restaurants with bars here get around this dumb law by offering a 99 cent order of chips or some other cheap appetizer. In fact, one can order a drink and get around the law by simply telling the waiter that he/she “intends” to order food at some point.
- Zion curtain: The idiots in the legislature think that if an under age person sees an alcoholic drink being poured, that the under age person will lose all control and begin drinking. So they passed a law that restaurants who serve alcohol must erect a “wall” between the seating and the bar. The restaurants made a mockery of this by first making the wall two feet high, as the legislature didn’t specify the height of the wall. After the legislature changed their rules on height, restaurants made the wall glass! Top Golf may need to erect one of these walls, known as a “Zion Curtain,” so that youngsters can’t “see” drinks being poured. When I was under age I saw my mom and dad pour cocktails every day at exactly 5 PM and look how I turned out. Oh, perhaps I’m not a good example.
- (Bonus) 21-year-old telepathic servers: Top Golf should only hire telepathic servers over 21 years old. It is illegal for a server in Utah to ask the customer if they want to see a wine list. Only if asked can the server give the wine list to a customer. Further, and I experienced this personally, the server must be 21 or older to give the customer a wine list. I had a 19 year old young lady as my server at a restaurant once who I asked a for a wine list. She told me she could not give it to me because she was under 21, and had to go get another server who was 21, who I then had to once again ask. My reaction was, “so it is illegal for you to give me a piece of paper with printed letters in the alphabet which form words, one of which is wine?” Her answer, “yes.” So there you have it. An under age person might lose all self control if they so much as read a word related to alcohol! Welcome to Utah.
There you go Top Golf. Hope these items above help you succeed because it is quite obvious the local government doesn’t want you to if you sell alcohol!
HOGWire – Golf Industry News
