Chicken N Pickle marks 10 years of hospitality-driven pickleball growth

Chicken N Pickle spent its 10th anniversary making a simple point: the courts were only the beginning. The company launched its original indoor-outdoor pickleball eatertainment complex in North Kansas City in 2016, and a decade later it had grown to 13 locations nationwide while investing more than $6.5 million in local communities.

Founder Dave Johnson said the idea from the start was to “create a place where families could gather, strangers could become friends and communities could reconnect through shared experiences.” That line gets to the heart of why Chicken N Pickle mattered to the pickleball world before the sport had fully crossed into mainstream leisure. It was never just a place to hit balls. It was built as a place to stay, eat, linger and come back to.

The brand’s model blended chef-driven dining, pickleball and community engagement in a way that made the venue feel more like a neighborhood anchor than a standard sports complex. Its anniversary message said the company was entering its second decade focused on hospitality innovation, experiential programming and thoughtful growth, which signals that Chicken N Pickle sees the next phase not as a race for more court count alone, but as a deeper refinement of the guest experience around the game.

For pickleball travelers and retreat planners, that is the real lesson. Chicken N Pickle showed how the sport can shape the energy, pacing and identity of a venue when it is treated as the center of the social experience, not a side amenity. The original indoor-outdoor setup helped define one of the fastest-growing categories in hospitality and entertainment, and it gave players a reason to show up for more than a match.

That is why the company’s 10-year milestone resonates beyond North Kansas City. The growth to 13 locations, the multimillion-dollar community investment and the mix of food, play and gathering all point to the same conclusion: pickleball venues become destination-worthy when they build around hospitality first. Chicken N Pickle has spent 10 years proving that the strongest clubs and retreat concepts are the ones people return to because the experience keeps working long after the final point.