High-end mini golf gets competitive in downtown Minneapolis as more spots open

Mini golf, long a suburban staple, is finding an upscale home in downtown Minneapolis.

Puttshack, a high-end mini-golf bar, will open Sept. 24 in the North Loop, just up Washington Avenue from the Puttery.

The rise of mini golf “eatertainment” venues reflects a broader trend pioneered by Topgolf, founded by the same brothers behind Puttshack. These venues take a traditional family-friendly game and turn it into a high-tech social experience centered on food, drinks and interactive play.

Other downtown venues, such as Tom’s Watch Bar, have Topgolf bays.

Kittie Fahey, senior director of advancement at the Minneapolis Downtown Council, said businesses like Puttshack are a “fantastic direction” for downtown.

It reflects how “people, especially Gen Z, don’t want to just go hang out at bars anymore,” she said. “This is almost like the new version of trivia.”

Minneapolis is “one of the top cities doing these types of things, specifically mini golf,” Fahey said. The city could become a national case study in how upscale mini golf thrives.

Puttshack last year opened at Southdale Center in Edina and has had a good reception, said Ryan Nowicki, the chain’s chief operating officer.

The company targets metropolitan areas with strong suburban followings. Nowicki said Puttshack was attracted to the young professionals in the North Loop, as well as the high foot traffic.

“We tend to get really excited about developing areas with residential combined with not only entertainment venues, but a growing population of young professionals,” he said. “It seemed like a good fit.”

At the North Loop location, the glow of Puttshack’s colorful lights spills onto the street, set against the backdrop of brick facades and string-lit patios. Inside, the holes blend mini golf with playful twists: air hockey, Skee-Ball and beer pong.

The more than 20,000-square-foot Minneapolis location will feature three courses with nine holes equipped with augmented reality elements that respond to players’ movements, plus the company’s “Challenge Hole” suite of mini-games.

Nowicki acknowledges the Puttery is “direct competition in our space.”

The thing that makes Puttshack stand out, he said, is its trackball technology. Each golf ball has an RFID chip linked to a player, keeping an automatic score and connecting to a leaderboard.

Now, with Puttshack opening just down the street, the North Loop is set to become a hub for high-end mini golf in the Twin Cities.

Whether two high-end mini-golf bars so close together can coexist remains to be seen.

Both venues are already marketing to young professionals, corporate groups and birthday parties, banking on the North Loop’s reputation as a nightlife hot spot.

“A downtown has to have a variety of assets for so many different types of people and different times of day and have a more well-rounded, exciting environment,” said the Downtown Council’s Fahey.