Urban Putt, San Francisco’s first indoor miniature golf course, at South Van Ness Avenue and 22nd Street, closed Saturday after a 10-year streak.
“I was there that last night that we closed. I walked around the course, looked at things, and my heart was quite heavy,” said Steve Fox, CEO and founder of Urban Putt. “It’s heartbreaking.”
The farewell was first teased in May 2023 when Funlab, an Australian company that owns more than 40 mini-golf and bowling venues in Australia and New Zealand, announced that it would take over Urban Putt’s San Francisco location and rebrand it as Holey Moley, a mini-golf course. Holey Moley is expected to debut in early 2024, possibly as soon as March, according to Fox.
Funlab also acquired Fox’s other Urban Putt location, in Denver, Colorado. In a May 2023 press release, Funlab promised that both the Denver and San Francisco stores would be “adaptations of popular existing Urban Putt locations” and that employees from both Urban Putt locations would remain on the team.
Fox is moving on, however; he’s busy preparing for a new Urban Putt location in downtown San Jose in late January. It will be located at 201 South Second St.
Still, he misses everything about the “idiosyncratic” Urban Putt on South Van Ness Avenue. Its miniature golf course for adults, kinetic sculpture, the store’s own version of Sutro Tower and Dia de Los Muertos — even the occasional flooding in its ancient building, which may have been built in the 1880s. “The building itself has got a character, it is a character that we learned to work with in so many ways,” he said.
“This has been my life for more than 10 years,” he said.
Fox, 67, moved to San Francisco from New York City in 1990. After a 35-year career as a writer and editor, in 2014 he created his own “jewel box,” Urban Putt. His team started out by stuffing 14 holes in the modest space (the revamped Holey Moley will have 18 holes, according to the company’s press release), then constantly adding “crazy devices” to the course — “We used vacuums to pull balls up 12 feet in the air, or an Archimedes screw, or moving steps,” said Fox. People loved the space, making Fox the witness of many an engagement and wedding ceremony throughout the years.
When Michael Schreiber, CEO of Funlab, was looking to expand to the United States, he initially approached Fox about buying Urban Putt a few years ago. Fox was “shocked;” selling had never occurred to him.
Urban Putt’s San Francisco location, however, was hit hard in the pandemic, especially during the 13 months it was closed. “That whole period when we were closed, I would go into work literally every day, and just walk around in the empty space, just trying to figure out what I could do, and the answer was, there wasn’t much to do,” said Fox.
After reopening, Urban Putt was hamstrung by pandemic restrictions, such as the six-foot social distancing rule. It never really bounced back.
Fox closed his deal with Funlab in June 2023. He’s enthusiastic about the space’s future under the new ownership. “I believe that Holey Moley will do a good job,” Fox said. “They’re serious about creating a good experience in the Mission.”
Many great nights at Urban Putt. Happy to see it will live on through Holey Moley and not add to the growing number of business closures and empty storefronts in our district.
Kudos for keeping such an idiosyncratic business going for so long. Glad it’s continuing in some form.