Life Lessons from Pickleball™

E46: Mara and John Hylton: The Story of Pickleball Kingdom

Shelley Maurer and Sher Emerick Episode 46

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 36:12

Join siblings Mara and John Hylton as they share their inspiring journey of launching Pickleball Kingdom in the Pacific Northwest. Whether you're a pro or just picking up a paddle, this is more than a place to play—it’s a community built around you. 💙

www.pickleballkingdom.com

📘 Our book Life Lessons from Pickleball™ is now available on Amazon

Order the book here: https://a.co/d/0bHPFYve

A collection of short, true stories from players around the world about community, resilience, and joy through the game of pickleball.

A portion of proceeds supports Operation PaddleLift, through the Global Pickleball Federation, distributing paddles, balls and nets to underserved communities around the world.

Contact us:  www.lifelessonsfrompickleball@gmail.com

Follow and watch:
https://www.lifelessonsfrompickleballpodcast.com
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557275391316
https://www.instagram.com/lifelessonsfrompickleball/
https://www.youtube.com/@LifeLessonsFromPickleballPod

Music gifted to us by Ian Pedersen: @ianpedersen 

Thanks for listening and you can also watch us on Youtube.

Introducing the Hilton Siblings

Speaker 1

Hi, I'm Shelly Maurer and I'm Cher Emrick. Welcome to Life.

Speaker 2

Lessons from Pickleball where we engage with pickleball players from around the world about life on and off the court.

Speaker 1

Thanks for joining us. Hi everyone, welcome to Life. Lessons from Pickleball. We are absolutely thrilled to welcome siblings Mara and John Hilton to the show today. As pickleball continues to surge, most of you know this that the popularity is making it so hard to find places to play. But Mara and John, you, as Pickleball Kingdom franchise owners and Pacific Northwest representatives, you're fortunately working to solve this very problem for us.

Speaker 2

Beyond your passion for pickleball, you bring a wealth of experience to your roles, John, as owner and CEO. You spent over 20 years developing and managing real estate projects throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Speaker 1

And Mara as head of operations. You bring decades of experience as a business owner serving the tech industry, excelling in HR, marketing and business development. My gosh together. You're both combining your expertise to create incredible opportunities for this Pickleball community.

Speaker 2

Before we dive into all the exciting things happening with Pickleball Kingdom, let's take it back to the beginning. How did you first get into Pickleball and what was going on in your lives at the time?

Speaker 3

Mara. I'll start with that one. So my wife and children. We moved down to Arizona from Seattle as a permanent residence in about 2019. Grew up mostly in the West Seattle parts of Seattle and moved down here in 19. And then, as you know, covid hit shortly thereafter and I think I was one of the many that was just looking for a way to get out of the house and get out and do things.

Speaker 3

And one of my neighbors, you know late, late 70s guy, called and said hey, a bunch of us, a bunch of us play pickleball and and at the time I thought I'm way too young to play that sport.

Speaker 4

That's just for.

Speaker 3

I got it. I'll wait till I'm in my 70s, but went out and played and my competitive nature kicked in and I had so much fun that day and I got beat up all over that court by people you know almost twice my age and I was very humbled and addicted. I just started playing, you know we were all locked inside. I started playing three or four days a week and just having so much fun and meeting new people. So, yeah, I got the bug right away at that point.

Speaker 4

Well, during COVID, when a bunch of my friends started playing, I was recovering from a knee injury from skiing, and so my journey started a little bit later after that, after surgery, and what I quickly realized was that it didn't take a super long time to feel like I was actually getting better, and for me what it did was I have an 11-year-old and I have a 16-year-old, and he would leave me in the dust with everything. You know, we we had a hard time finding things that we could do together where he wasn't like all right, see you. Later, mom and um, pickleball became something that we could all do as a family and, you know, the love from there just continued to grow. And you know, I still stand in uh, you know, a a small place. I don't run around over the court as much because of my knee, but, um, it's definitely been, you know, just crazy great for reconnecting with my family.

Speaker 1

That is really cool and it's true, you don't have to move too much. If you get smart about where you're going to place the ball and you've got a good reach, you can cover a lot of that court without having to move your legs too much. And I'm sorry about your knee.

Speaker 2

we've been there, done that and it's not fun so how did this all lead to pickleball kingdom Kingdom?

Speaker 1

Wow, you have a story, right, you have a story around that.

Speaker 3

Yes, we do, amara, shall I?

Speaker 4

Go ahead.

Speaker 3

Okay, so we again moved down here. We actually moved to Chandler, Arizona, where Pickleball Kingdom originated. The first location was here. First location was here. We actually go to a church here near our house. That is the same church that Ace Rodriguez, who's the CEO of Pickleball Kingdom, attends, and we actually have a small group we meet on Wednesday a community group. We meet on Wednesday nights and there's about 20 of us in our group and Ace is one of those guys. So he would be.

Finding Pickleball During COVID

Speaker 3

You know, a few years ago, when this idea came up for him this is back before, really, you know, indoor pickleball was really even existed and he was sharing about his idea to open up, you know, the largest indoor pickleball facility. And, truth be told, all I heard was pickleball and I knew how much fun it was, but I wasn't really paying a whole lot of attention until one day I was waiting to get a haircut and I was reading the local paper and I saw this big two-page spread on ace, you know, from our group, and, uh, that was when I was going wow, this is real. You know, I didn't know people would want to play indoors and actually pay to go play indoors. And I saw it and I said, wow, it's incredible. So the next day I saw him. I said, man, I saw the article. This thing you're doing is actually really impressive.

Speaker 3

And meanwhile I I was I've been in real estate for a while and I still had a building up in West Seattle. It was a it's an it's an older warehouse building that I had sold a couple of years prior, but I had not not been paid off completely for it. So I started thinking, you know, there's a chance that this building ends up coming back to me and what am I going to do with this building if that's, you know, if that happens. And so one night at group I pulled Ace aside and I said, hey, this you know Pickleball Kingdom thing you're doing by this point I had known he had about 150 franchises in process throughout the country, had about 150 franchises in process throughout the country. Wow, and yeah, it was an incredible journey for him and I got to listen to it firsthand for something of this scale. You know, starbucks, cold Stone these companies didn't grow that fast and I obviously I went down the rabbit hole of pickleball and the growth of the sport and the origin of the sport coming from Seattle. And one night I pulled him aside, I said, hey, is anybody building one up in Seattle? Because I've got this building. And he said, well, come on into the corporate office and let's talk. So we went in there and we talked and I realized A one of the things that I felt Seattle was really needing was a community-driven thing.

Speaker 3

We've got a lot of them down here in Arizona. It's just there's a lot of indoor bouncy houses for our kids and all these things that really kind of bring community together. And and I immediately thought, yeah, this, something like this, has to go up in Seattle. I mean, between the weather and just all my siblings still live up there. So I looked at it and I said I really want to do, I want to do one of these. In fact I'd like to do two of them. I'll do one on the on the West side, over in the Seattle side, and I'll do one over on the East side. But hang on, I got to call Mara because I want to do it, but I'm not going to do it unless she's into it. So my phone call, I think, went a little like hey, mara, don't laugh, but I've got this idea and it involves a business in pickleball, which I think would be great up there in Seattle.

Speaker 3

And so Mara flew down shortly after and came in and and her, her boyfriend, nate, is a great, great business guy. He's also part of a franchise world, so he looked at it too and and everybody was going I think this would, I think this would do really well up in Seattle and I think Seattle needs it. So it started with, okay, we'll do two locations and it ended with, okay, we'll just do, we'll just do the whole state of Washington. And so we have. We have now 21 licenses. What we're doing, mara and I she lives in Sammamish. What we're doing, mara and I, she lives in Sammamish. And we kind of drew a circle between basically Everett initially Everett down to Tacoma, poulsbo on the west end and North Bend on the east end, and we said, ok, we can, we can probably fit, you know, six to eight of these clubs in this area, everything outside of that area. We will find partners, we will find people that want to open.

Speaker 3

So we sold our license rights to Yakima, the Tri-Cities, vancouver and now Portland and we work hand-in-hand with those franchisees, are great friends and partners for us.

Speaker 3

So it's very interesting because our whole family's incredibly close, are all of our siblings. But Mary and I were the you know, 18 months apart kids growing up and we've got a little sibling, six years younger than me and another one six years younger than him, and and our lives went in two different directions for a long time, where she gained all of this skill necessary for and she can explain her company. But she gained all the skills operationally and my life took me in a position where I gained all the skills needed for architecture, construction, leases, all those things, but don't ask me how to make payroll or, or, or doing that, that's, that's Mara. So we, we uh, joined forces. People ask us all the time how can you be business partners with your sibling? And I said well, a you don't know our family, cause we're, we're, we're like that. But B we don't overlap when she is going into her wheelhouse, I remain in my lane and it just works really well, we're having a blast?

Speaker 2

Yeah, we are. Can you tell the listeners what is a pickleball kingdom?

Speaker 3

Oh sure.

Speaker 1

Actually before that, if you wouldn't mind let me just ask, mara, you had a business, you own a business right, and so did you leave that business. Are you still owning that?

Speaker 4

business and you're running this as well. Well, I'm in the process of actually selling that business. It's okay. You know, I didn't know how long I could actually have both and you know, like John said, initially we were thinking about doing two clubs and I was like, oh, I can definitely help get some things set up, you know, hr wise and just you know, policy wise and operationally. But then with the, you know the shift turning to hey, we're going to do more clubs and even even more than the six that we originally thought we could do. We think we can do more in the area because of the amazing demand, the people that call every day and email every day. I mean, I'm the one calling them back and and you know there's such a buzz around it. So I've made the decision about two months ago with my other business partner that she's you know it's it's going to be selling off and she'll, she'll continue to run part of it, but then I'll be going full, full-time pickleball.

The Origin of Pickleball Kingdom

Speaker 1

Full-time. Okay, cool Now, shelly. Thank you, I appreciate that background.

Speaker 2

Yes. So now, yeah, tell us what Pickleball Kingdom is.

Speaker 3

Sure, pickleball Kingdom. One of the great things that drew me to it is A, the leadership. Again, I know A's from a personal standpoint, but we are a premier indoor pickleball facility but we do things slightly different, are a premier indoor pickleball facility but we do things slightly different. Um, a, we've gone all in on the thing that people want to do, which is play pickleball. We are not, uh, we are not a. Some of our competition. It's a restaurant and bar and pickleball. We're, we're, we're all in on what uh, we believe that the people want, which is, um, to play pickleball now, and we do offer, you know, some light snacks and some beverage. We will have beer and wine and a mezzanine overlooking, but one of the things that that really drew me to it was, um, I I felt like when I first started playing pickleball, I felt like like there was still, even though it's it's, it's inexpensive to get into pickleball, it's, it's relatively easy sport to start to learn. After an hour or two you can feel pretty good. There's still a little bit of a barrier in the fact that it's hard to just show up Like our court. Our outdoor courts around here are just packed and when you show up as a beginner, it's a little intimidating and, and, um, you know the people that have been playing for years. We've seen all kinds of different attitudes and, um, generally speaking, most people are incredibly pleasant with beginners, but it's still a, it's still a bit of a barrier, and what I love about Pickleball Kingdom is our motto is creating community. That's what we do.

Speaker 3

We are not simply building an indoor facility to play pickleball. We want a place. That you know. We decided a while ago that this needs to be the highlight of whoever comes in our club. This is the highlight of their day, from the way you're greeted, you know, to the, to the quality of the courts, quality of the lighting, quality of the atmosphere, but also just afterwards, you know, hanging out with your friend If you want to go up on the mezzanine and watch more pickleball. We've added a lot of great tech features, and so pickleball kingdom, I think, separates ourselves from our competition in the fact that you know we are, you know, kind of a country club of pickleball, without the country club pricing. We are looking for a very social experience. We'll run a lot of events to harbor that, you know, for even beginner socials, and so, yeah, pickleball Kingdom, I think, of the brands just kind of separates itself a little bit in that aspect.

Speaker 4

And I can add on to that a little bit with as someone that I kind of missed the boat when everyone started playing a lot and, like John said, it can be a little intimidating when you're a beginner and you're going out there Pickleball Kingdom.

Speaker 4

One great thing that we will do at all of our clubs, that they do at all of the clubs, is Pickleball 101, which is where we spend an hour with you. We give you a paddle, we teach you how to play and by the end of that hour you feel a little bit more comfortable moving on and then we'll have other opportunities to either join beginner open play, play. But we're taking it as a strong focus for us to help those beginners, from the moment they walk in, to feel comfortable on the courts but then also lead them to meeting other beginners and meeting new friends and creating their own pickleball community, which is separate from you know, having to find three other friends that already know how to play, so you can come by yourself and by the end of the week you have text, you know phone numbers of other beginners that you've met at your first week at Pickleball Kingdom.

Speaker 4

And then, all of a sudden, you're, you know you're seeing those people each week and you know they say the Seattle freeze is is a real thing, and it's hard to meet people, especially with the weather being so dark and drab and we don't leave our homes. And so by offering a place where people can come learn something new but immediately feel comfortable in establishing their own new community, is something that I think separates Pickleball Kingdom from just being, you know, an indoor court.

Speaker 1

Indeed. In fact, that's how Shelly and I met each other was the very first day on the court. We took a lesson and that's how we met, and now we have this large community of friends.

Speaker 3

It's just incredible yeah.

Speaker 1

And I love that you're offering that for free.

Speaker 3

We do yeah.

Speaker 4

Twice a day for free.

Speaker 1

We do, yeah, twice a day, every day, oh my gosh.

Speaker 3

And now give us a ballpark idea of how many courts are in one kingdom. Yeah, typically we are, you know, kind of a minimum of 10 courts. Our first two locations, the first one we have is in Linwood and it was a former Bed, bath and Beyond at Alderwood Mall.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

And it's 38,000 square feet. We've got 12 courts plus a mezzanine. We have a big community room. So for corporate events and birthday parties you can book out the corporate events room. We've got interactive dink wall in there. We've got some tech with instant replays and cameras at every court what Cameras love. You run over and you just hit the save replay button and immediately up on the tv that's there. It shows you the last 40 second replay. You can actually see if balls were in.

Speaker 3

Balls were out yeah, but um, it also then sends you that replay to your app and you can, you can share that on social media. You can, uh, it actually has, uh, the ability to keep score for you for share that on social media, you can. It actually has the ability to keep score for you for people that are still confused with our pickleball scoring. It's got a lot and it's, it's, it's. It's a exclusive deal for pickleball kingdom, but they are growing it to. You know, there'll be some artificial intelligence for keeping score, so you don't have to worry about it if that's your case, or just a nice backup for those times where we're going. Wait, was it?

Speaker 3

seven four seven five yeah um the long answer yes, it's 12 courts in winwood, and then our other location is over in polsbo, which is about five miles as the crow flies from the original court on dane bridge wow and.

Speaker 3

Wow, and that was a former Big Five and Office Max next door. We took both spaces, also about $38,000,. Also 12 courts Brilliant. We have two more locations that we're very close to doing a deal on, and those are 14 and 16 courts. So one thing I've learned in the last eight months is my 12 courts. I I only wish we had 16, because the the the demand we, we want to. We want to, uh, not only have the people that currently play pickleball have plenty of room to play, but we want to keep bringing new people to the sport, and for that we're going to need more courts and you know so.

Speaker 3

So yeah, we're 10 courts minimum.

Speaker 1

That is so cool and our audience is all over the world. So are these all over the world? I know they're across the country, right?

Speaker 3

Uh, they are. Uh well, they're, they're coming. So, uh, pickleball kingdom has just started, they're coming. So Pickleball Kingdom has just started. Their international scope I know they've got some deals in Asia. I know the Middle East. I know they're talking with some people in Australia. Mer and I were at the Founders Tournament. We met a bunch of people from Thailand. It's growing like crazy there.

Speaker 3

So, yeah, if you are listening outside of the United States, please reach out, because we want you know all of your help to continue to bring this, bring this across the globe.

Speaker 1

So and at the end of the show we'll ask you your contact information. What were you saying, mara?

Speaker 4

Oh, I was. I was going to say even here in the U S. I think there's over 400 in the works right now.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's just remarkable.

What Makes Pickleball Kingdom Special

Speaker 4

I think it's going to be like popcorn. In the last three months or two months, I think, six have opened. It's great. Everyone that is working with Pickleball Kingdom as a franchisee I mean everybody we meet once a month. Everyone's sharing best practices and really getting to share ideas to make the experience better for people. And so a year from now it's going to look, you know, very different.

Speaker 1

The country will be pickleball kingdom. There'll be a lot of them.

Speaker 3

There certainly will be.

Speaker 1

And you know we're thrilled about it well, it takes a lot of courage to dive in like you both have done. Uh, you bring remarkable experience and expertise, and the two of you together is the perfect combo, and you enjoy each other's company as sisters and brother. I mean, that's just really an amazing mix and, as a pickleball fanatic, as is Shelly, we thank you that you're doing this in our neck of the woods, especially because, we are in the Seattle area, so that's just wonderful, and I was noticing how you guys have the Pickleball Kingdom core values.

Speaker 1

Life is better with pickleball. Competition is fun. Playing pickleball is good for you physically, socially and spiritually. Our greatest asset is our community and we respect our teammates and you are our teammates. I just love that. I love that, yes.

Speaker 3

Well, life certainly is better with pickleball. Life is certainly better indeed.

Speaker 1

In fact, I was saying to Shelly I have to figure out what I'm going to do with my days when I'm not playing pickleball. Come join us. There are very few.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I got to tell you the amount of applications we have from people that are wanting to work with us and at our clubs has been it's been pretty incredible because we are meeting. We have people that are calling in that say, man, I haven't worked in 20 years but I just want to be around Pickleball. I just want to be around pickleball, I just want to be there I just, you know.

Speaker 3

So, from the front desk, um, it's like, it's vitally important for us that the oh, I'm dropping my air pod Uh, it's vitally important for us that, from the top down, the way, uh, our employees feel and the way the employees make our members feel, we decided a long time ago every single decision that we make, from this point moving forward, is going to be in the best interest of our members first, our employees second, and then, if we do that well, we believe it'll be a success for us and those who have invested with us. But I think what was it? Eight months ago, mara had been recommended a book that is now mandatory reading for all of our employees, by the way, but it's Unreasonable Hospitality, and that took my mind. Shift from indoor pickleball to this experience that we're after that, that is, that is incredibly important that people will not want to, uh, ever leave.

Speaker 3

You know, even in the beautiful weather outside, you might as well. Still, you know the fact that we don't have. When we do our open play, which we do four times a day, and we'll designate a certain amount of courts based on the draw for that day, for beginners, intermediate and advanced, we manage it really well, awesome. Yeah, so you know, in the summertime and we pride ourselves on you know, the average wait time is four minutes. So if you get knocked out of a game because we limit the amount of people, you can join into another game, kind of in the next four minutes and that's so.

Speaker 3

Yeah, you know summertime, I know how beautiful the summers are in Seattle and oh yeah, you know they're short but they're sweet and therefore a lot of pickleball courts outside are pretty, pretty busy and packed, so we just want to keep doing what we do very well, even during the summer.

Speaker 1

Oh my gosh Shelly, how excited are you.

Speaker 2

I am so excited because, yeah, in the summer sometimes you can wait 30 minutes between games. Yeah, oh, it'll be so nice to have your indoor option.

Speaker 1

Yeah, will you have tournaments at your facilities?

Speaker 3

We will. We'll have in-house, we'll have a lot of round robins and different tournament formats. We've been reached out to by several of the kind of national tournament yeah, and this is really when we decided that, hey look, we've got to make every decision in the interest of our members. First, because a lot of these companies they want to host these big national tournaments in the Northwest and you know they will come in, they will bring the staff, they will rent your whole facility out from you and hold these tournaments. And you know we've said only we will do this if it's a benefit for our members.

Speaker 3

So if our members can get maybe first right of refusal to join the tournament or, you know, heavy discount to join that tournament, or if they even want it, because you know again, if the answer is it's not the benefit for the members, then the answer is no, and it doesn't matter how much money you're offering it's it's that our members either want it or they don't, and that's how we'll make our decision that's lovely I have a question about the membership.

Speaker 2

Is it, if you join, is it friend across franchises, or do you join just for that individual franchise?

Speaker 3

uh, this is the this is the, the golden question.

Speaker 3

So, as it stands now, because there are so many franchises around the world and especially, you know, you've got people that live in Seattle during the summer, live in Arizona during the winter Somebody else owns Arizona than Seattle, so they're just doing a blanket discount for us in the Northwest as we grow our own clubs, we will be able to offer that.

Speaker 3

You know, if you, let's say, you live in Tacoma, work in Seattle and you've got a club nearby at each location, so we will be able to offer that, because we're the ownership group and we're also working with those of us or those franchisees who have bought locations from us. So our, our friends in Yakima and the tri cities, we all want to kind of get on that. Yeah, your people from there should be able to come over and play with us. So we are working on it. We will have a solution to that, but as it stands now, there's currently, I think, eight or 10 locations open in the country. So the problem hasn't existed, but we're very close to it really being an issue, and so we will.

Speaker 2

We will be able to offer something like that Because I that's what I love about pickleball. You know you travel. I just want to tell why you just show up, you find a community you can play. So it'd be so nice if you could you know when you're traveling go to your pickleball kingdom.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and feel like you're home, no matter where you are. I just love that you are putting hospitality front and center your experiences on this journey, or maybe on the court. What life lessons have you gleaned?

Speaker 3

Mary, you want me to go first. One more time, I feel like I'm hogging the mic.

Speaker 3

I don't even like the sound of my voice in the mic. I don't even like the sound of my voice, I think. Honestly, the most life lessons that I've learned, especially in the last 24 months, have come from Mara, and I spend basically 10 hours a day on Zoom calls. We've talked to everyone, from the person who was struggling with depression or mental disorders in any format, that pickleball saved their life. We've talked to, in fact, one of our new hires. His story is that he lost 130 pounds playing pickleball.

Speaker 3

And I'm constantly, every day, even though I don't get to play much pickleball anymore for now. I'm constantly learning lessons from this sport that I hear from so many people, whether it's the granddad playing a tournament with his grandson on the same team, and it's just, you know, my 11-year-old and my 9-year old and I, we play pickleball together all the time. So mine's, mine's a little bit more just from being engulfed and talking to other people and learning how important the sport is, you know for so many people Nice, my lesson has been around how important it is for those relationships.

Speaker 4

I think you know, after COVID Everybody felt boxed in and I know. For me, and every time I'm playing and now that I'm actually talking about pickleball 24 hours a day really, because I can't stop talking about it it's rediscovered in me how important it is to have people around you for your soul and just to make that internal happy meter just comes up and everyone talks about it. I mean that's the beauty of pickleball and we're super fortunate because now we get to be surrounded by it all the time. I mean I've met a ton of new people, people that I wouldn't otherwise have met, all because of Pickleball, and almost every single person has the same story, like their Pickleball community is just new for them and you find that you're actually closer to them because of the shared experience with Pickleball. So we're excited to help continue that.

Speaker 4

In the area, especially here, where it rains all the time and it's dark, we can be that bright light. You know, bringing pickleball, you know, to people. But it's really just made me realize how important it is to have people around you at all times and you can't help but laugh and smile and even if you're taking yourself way too seriously on the court, it's such a social and fun game and everybody that I've talked to it's life-changing and I've felt it in my own. But I've seen it and I mean again, I feel incredibly grateful that we're even a part of this because of what it's done for so many people.

Speaker 1

Well, we're incredibly grateful that you're a part of this too, because you're bringing those courts that we have been desperately needing. We'll be going to every single one that's within a hundred mile radius. Going to every single one that's within a hundred mile radius.

Speaker 2

No, no, no, no, and it's always about 70 degrees.

Speaker 3

It's bright, you know, fantastic lighting. We've, we've listened to the people, what they, what everybody wants, you know, from the lighting to the surfacing, to the atmosphere. So I can't wait to see you both there, for sure I will For sure.

Speaker 1

So how can people find you online? By the way, there's pickleballkingdomcom.

Speaker 4

If you go to the website you can do a search for your state and then it can drop you down. Right now people can join both our Polesbow and our Linwood Lake locations from the website. We also, you know, all of the emails right now come to me. So we have an info at Pickleball Kingdom Linwood and we have an info at Pickleball Kingdom Polesbow. We also have Facebook and Instagram Again, pickleball Kingdom Linwood. Pickleball Kingdom Polesbow. Again, pickleball Kingdom Linwood. Pickleball Kingdom Pulsebow. I'm the one on there answering all of the messages and comments, and so it's been really neat to meet everyone else. But yeah, and then when we open they can come by. And what is your first opening date? Pulsebow is in March. The exact date, depending on the, you know, the fire marshal inspection is going to be between the middle and closer to the end of March, hopefully more towards the middle, and then Linwood is about four weeks later.

Speaker 1

So yeah, they're going to be here.

Speaker 2

I mean, I can't believe we're talking now three and a half weeks Right.

Speaker 4

Right.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 4

Shelly, how lucky are we. Come see me at Linwood. I'll be. I'll be there, like every day.

Growth and Hospitality Philosophy

Speaker 1

That's the one closest to me, so, yeah, you'll see me too. Oh my gosh, thank you both. I can't believe that you were able to carve out some time to talk with us, because you are crazy busy and we don't want to take any time away from everything you're doing, so that those can open soon. But we really are grateful that you took the time today. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Speaker 3

Yes, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for being on the show. Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you both for having us. You're, you're wonderful. It was great, great chatting with you and your smiles. It's awesome and that's what I love about this. Every I mean we had. We had mayors the mayor of Linwood, the mayor of Poulsbo, both heavily involved, and everyone you talk to is happy. You know it's, it's it's such a we we feel incredibly successful and blessed, and we haven't even opened our doors yet.

Speaker 3

You know and it's just it's to get to work with my sister every day, day in, day out. It's uh. I think our parents are pretty proud too. So oh yeah.

Speaker 1

Golly, and your siblings too, and we're all benefiting.

Speaker 3

So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you all.

Speaker 1

Thank you all for being a part of this. Show you all we're so glad, and check it out, pickleballkingdomcom. Find your place and we'll see you on the court and look forward to another conversation next week. Bye-bye.

Speaker 2

If you love our podcast, we'd be so grateful if you'd take a few seconds to follow or subscribe to Life Lessons from Pickleball. This ensures you'll never miss an episode and helps us continue these wonderful conversations.

Speaker 1

On Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you listen, go to the show page and tap the follow button in the top right corner and on YouTube, click the subscribe button under any of the episodes.

Speaker 2

Thanks so much. Hope to see you on the court.