We’re not alone. The fine art of lowering expectations begins in Augusta for company looking for growth ahead of rumored IPO

The reddit thread linked above was started one day ago in Chattanooga (home of the Chattanooga Choo Choo) shortly after the press release by the company which addressed the new smaller versions of the popular golf emporiums. A cleaned up version is below. (Read the full thread at the link here)
So instead of a full fledged building and multiple stories they are going single story with an open concept.
The Top Golf down in ATL has like three stories. I’ve gone when it appears packed out. You get to the driving range and like half the bays are still empty.
Hopefully the price will be better.
Top Mini-golf would be way better
So… It’s Sir Gooneys!
The golf may be mini, but the Jenga is giant.
I’d really like to see a count of how many bays there will be total in this design. But I think no matter what I’m going to sadly have to keep driving to Alpharetta as my friends and I suck at golf so starting from the third floor always helped get it into the first two buckets. I’m pretty bummed to see this is confirmed. Likely won’t be worth the wait times.
So is it wider rather than taller? If the range is the same this could be cool
I kept wondering why they didn’t seem to be building up when I would drive by on the way to Costco. I guess that explains it. Incredibly dumb decision. People will still go, I doubt anyone will actually ever be able to get in, but they could’ve made a lot more money if they just put a regular Top Golf in.
I guess I’m the only one here who’s literally never heard of Top Golf, doesn’t understand why its new “layout” is a disappointment, and doesn’t even really understand what Top Golf is even after googling it? I feel like an alien, here. All of this is just unknown to me.
TopGolf is a driving range/entertainment business. The gold balls all have RFID chips and there are different ‘games’ you can play with your friends. There are 2-3 stories of rooms facing the range where you can be served food, alcohol, etc. while playing the driving games.
Chattanooga isn’t getting that.
This is disappointing. Back when I was involved with top golf they were trying to find a place where they could put one of the smaller layout facility like the one in Huntsville or just a little smaller.
So Southside Social and Top Golf had a baby and that baby isn’t as good as either of the parents?
Awesome. Just awesome. What a huge disappointment. Chattanooga could totally handle a full size, full feature Top Golf IMO
An announced development in East Ridge was oversold and will be underwhelming? I’m shocked, shocked!
…well not that shocked.
Wasn’t it already announced that this would be a smaller one? I know that I’ve definitely already heard people complaining about this.
Yes it was announced several months ago that it was prototype one story top golf
Oh good, they’ve found a way to ensure long wait times even in smaller cities


Sounds like there will be some insane wait times.. Such a letdown
So a driving range?
That is what top golf literally is.
But without the need to adhere to golf etiquette, and openly drink booze, yeah.
So a driving range
Exactly
Meh, just don’t even bother then. We wanted the actual experience, not some glorified simulator.
Rather than what this facility is going to be, I’d be just as content with hitting balls into a projection screen. At least then you don’t have to turn around to see where your ball landed on the digital golf course.
No surprise. Any sort of potentially neat thing that happens in Chattanooga is half assed.
Oh good, TopGolf without golf. Just what everyone wanted.
So it’s Southside Social with a small driving range?
Underwhelming.
When it fails they’ll blame the city instead of their silly concept.
They sold the city on the larger concept and the city ate some of the costs of the infrastructure buildout to make it happen. The city definitely deserves some of the blame for letting them get away with it.
and the city ate some of the costs of the infrastructure buildout
Well that seems like a bait and switch. Seems only fair to pull the plug on any city provided funding. Or demand the full version.
That’s an awfully tall fence for minigolf…
Well that’s a huge disappointment
Cool design but they could have at least done two floors.
And, you know, an actual building instead of some open wall pavilion thing
So disappointing
Damn but definitely not surprised.
Yep…CHA doesn’t warrant full sized anything apparently, but there is enough money here that companies still want to cash in somehow.
Huntsville is similar to Chattanooga and Top Golf built a full 3 story facility there.. not sure why Top Golf wouldn’t do the same here.
I would argue that Huntsville is a city in the middle of Nowhere and Chattanooga sits within a two hour drive of Atlanta and Nashville and both cities have a top golf if not two.
Huntsville is similar to Chattanooga and Top Golf built a full 3 story facility there.. not sure why Top Golf wouldn’t do the same here.
Huntsville has plenty of wealthy NASA engineers and officials.
Chattanooga’s cheap, smashed between Nashville, Knoxville and Atlanta. This is a perfect area for companies to want to put a factory, but if you want entertainment and you want a city that’s going to be friendly to places like TopGolf then you want to go to Nashville or Atlanta.
I don’t understand why you’re being down voted. You’re completely right. Chattanooga is a two horse town trying to be New York City and the companies looking to invest here see that. It has demand for serious entertainment here but why would they choose Chatt if they can make more guaranteed profit in Atlanta or Nashville. Chatt is gonna be stuck in a rut of entertainment for a while before it’s taken seriously by anyone.
No one wants to hear that their town is the lesser sibling. I get it. I was born and raised here, moved to Atlanta for 15 years and recently moved back. Before I moved I might have down voted myself, but reality really set in when I lived in Atlanta and saw how much some people really fight to keep the small town feel in Chattanooga and how much it holds back the progress that people on this reddit really want.
I think there is also some pushback or, in this TopGolf instance, compromises where entertainment companies set themselves to be smaller than Nashville/Atlanta. I am from a big city prior to moving here so I see it in the same way. They want to be big, without allowing themselves to be big.