How Putt Pub Built a $1.1M Mini Golf Bar and Took a $50K Deal

Alright. We're here in San Marcos at Putt Pub. Think of it like a golf course plus drinking and a lot of fun with your friends.

Over five years, we're averaging 1,100,000. We're netting about 20%.

What percent of your 1,100,000 of sales will be from golf sales?

About 35%.

Oh, it's significant. It's pretty big.

Absolutely. The problem is if it rains, he's not making money. We need anywhere from 100 to 150,000 to really, weatherize our front and side patio. If I like his plan, I'll offer to invest on the spot.

Is there any other debt on the balance sheet today?

It's at about 1.6. Ah, okay.

Well, so that's a big deal. Right.

I'm Nathan.

How are you? Reilly Hursley. Reilly, good to meet you, man. Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming. This is

your place,

It is. Welcome to Putt Pub. Thank you. Thank you. When did you guys open? We opened October 2020.

That was right after, well, during, right before COVID?

Right before, and then COVID happened and we actually had to shut down for a month and reclassify and reopen. Didn't take too long. This was my first business to open. I graduated from Texas State back in 2010 and got in the bar scene after college and, you know, came up with this fun idea for a bar concept, you know, a mini golf bar, adult playground called Putt Pub. We secured the property, actually signed a lease in

2015. We didn't open until 2020. So it took actually about five years with raising funds and then getting into construction until we finally opened.

Reilly, that sounds insane to me. I mean, you eating lease costs for five

years before having a dollar of revenue?

Yes. Fortunately, we were able to purchase the property in 2022. What were the opening costs all in? All in? It was about 1,600,000

Where did you get $1,600,000 to launch this right out of college?

Well, it was a few years out of college. You just never know where you're investors, right? One was actually a guy I went to high school and he was a successful, he was in real estate. The other one I met while bartending on 6th Street in Austin, showed him my tattoo. I wish I got real...

You already had the tattoo?

Yeah, I was really hyped up. Once I, you know, found the property and just had the vision, I just... It was almost a way to hold myself accountable and make this happen. He was able to make a large investment, so

I was fortunate. So you raised $1,600,000 in equity?

Yes. That was one of the reasons why it took a while for construction. We didn't have all the costs, all the funds to open the place right off the bat. I tried to, you know, save with a contractor who, you know, who wasn't the best contractor. He got in over his head. He ended up quitting on the job. We had to raise more funds. And so ultimately to open the place, it was a $1,600,000 project to

Wow. Get Actually one bought the other one out this past year. So I really have one big investor. How much did you end up having to sell

of the business to raise the 1,600,000?

I own about 35% of the business. He's been a great partner. He's actually my CFO.

Take us back to when you met these first investors. I was working on different bar

concepts and one day I was driving and I was like, what if it was all about the putting? And it just hit me a light bulb. And I like, oh, that's it. That's the concept. It's a putting venue. Then the name Putt Pub hit me. At the time, nobody was thinking mini golf and bar. I had, you know, the site plan and then I drew out like a bar in the middle and the route for the course.

What did you tell investors when you put the plan together? What did you project for first year revenue?

I projected about 1.5, 1.6. Okay. And our first year we ended up doing 1.3.

Oh, wow. Okay. That's surprising.

So you actually basically hit projection. That's impressive. Coming off COVID, people were

really excited to get outside, get out drinking again. So we had a great first couple of years.

So in 2021, did one. 3,000,000. And then have you grown or has it been sort of flat since then or declined?

It's, it's, we've taken a little bit of hit in recent years. As you know, when you're the new kids on the block, you're going to see a big It's been kind of a down market last couple of years for a lot of the venues around here. We've still over five years, we're averaging 1,100,000. So we're still doing well. We're netting about 20%. First couple of years, was it was much better. Now that was before we purchased

the building. So the the carrying cost of owning a property, as you know, is a lot. What was the total cost of the property to buy it?

So it was 2,200,000. Yeah. Okay. Okay. If you just had to sell this one day just for the land value, are you in the money? It has appreciated. Okay.

You guys hear me ask founders all the time. Are you doing email marketing? Are you sending text messages to your customers? I get a lot of smart answers. Parker and Scott broke 500,000 of revenue because they know how to reach their customers consistently. Cranky Grannies has built a massive text message marketing list, which allows them to sell out of their cinnamon rolls via their secret menu. If you wanna grow your business fast, you need to use

Omnisend to send text message marketing and email blasts efficiently, quickly, and on schedule. Use this link today. It's completely free for your first 250 contacts, and it's beautifully integrated into Claude via an MCP. This means it is AI ready so you can set it, sit back, and relax. And because you guys know I'm a numbers guy, Omnisend has tons of case studies from customers that say they get on average $79 back for every $1 they spend

on this kind of marketing. That's the kind of return that I'm chasing. Plus, Omnisend does free migration in just five days. They move everything in your data stack. You just show up when it's done, and you can save 35% in the process. Visit omnisend.com forward slash the deal show and use coupon code Nathan to save 30% over your first three months. Link is in the description.

6th Street works because there's so much foot traffic. Right. This, there is no... There's very little foot traffic. It has to be a destination, which means you must be very good at online marketing or pulling people in. Is my intuition correct there or wrong?

It's going pretty well. Our biggest battle is it's largely an outdoor venue. So we're battling the elements. When it's 100 degree weather, the day business is pretty slow, know, till about sunset. And then we start picking up, it's a seasonal town. 50% of the population is students. So the summer and winter months, they're leaving town, business slows And then when it's raining, it's really bad for business for us.

What do you think you'll do in 2026 if nothing changes? It's been a very wet year.

April, you live in Austin. I do, yeah. And so it rained every weekend. And that's when 80% of our weekly sales, it's on the weekend. And so it's been a wet spring and then we're getting into the hot months. I'm expecting around a million as is.

Okay. Okay. So down slightly, but not by a crazy amount.

Right. We're in the front patio, lots of yard games here. We have a giant mustache seesaw. We have cornhole. This is beer pong, giant beer pong. We added these TVs here with audio. So this is kind of our covered area outside, a putting green out this way, and then an 18 hole mini golf course and bar. And so when

you say that you wanna sort of still do business when it's raining, are you wanting to cover just this area or you wanna cover sort of the whole thing?

I have kind of two phases in mind. I want to cover this front inside patio area. I had two giant gazebos out front stage. So we get into live music. This is my food trailer. It's Nachaholics, build your own nachos. We have some great nacho options. And then after about a year, we added a second menu called long dog and it's foot long hot dogs, fries, tots, really good bar grub.

Of the 1,100,000 you'll do this year, how much comes from the two food trucks?

Well, it's two menus, one truck. But we're only doing about 50,000 in food sales right now.

A That feels small to me. We do deals with a lot of food trucks, but again, they don't have us to deal with. You don't have time to focus on this.

When I started out, I had other food trailers, tenants coming here and, you know, dealing with tenants is kind of a battle as far as, you know, are they gonna pay rent on time and are they gonna show up when they're supposed to? So we're open right now, Wednesday through Sunday. I wanna build up business here so we could be open seven days a week. There's always a kitchen open. Let's act like I

was an actual customer coming in. Where would I go if I said, okay, Reilly, I'm feeling a little tipsy now. I wanna go challenge my friends to a little game of golf.

What does it cost for five people to play putt putt? It's $15 a person. Kids 12 and under are half off, and that's unlimited mini golf for the day.

It's a day pass. Okay. And what percent of your 1,100,000 of sales will be from golf sales?

About 35%.

Oh, it's it's pretty big.

Absolutely. That's a nice hedge. You know, one of the big trends happening in Austin right now, at least, I don't if it's happening down here, especially during dry January. Like, people don't wanna drink alcohol as much anymore.

So you're already diversified. Absolutely. So it's a 18 hole mini golf course. We have

the bar behind us in case we get thirsty. This is hole number one. Do people typically do this before drinking or after drinking or during?

They usually like to get a drink, work up a little buzz maybe and make their way out here.

Yeah, that makes sense. You just go.

That's it. Did I get get through?

Oh, wow.

Did we get that on camera?

Are you sure you haven't played here No.

I'm quitting. I'm quitting. I'm quitting.

That's too hard. Coming in hot.

Way too hard. Oh,

that... That's pretty...

Oh, way too much speed. Oh, now I'm in trouble. Okay. That's that's pretty good. That's not an easy... You try. Perfect shot.

There we go. Alright. So Reilly, the course is clearly a lot of fun. How many... If someone's going through this three people, probably what takes them an hour to get through it?

It's about thirty five minutes.

Okay.

Depending on how much you're drinking.

Okay. So how much can you make just from a golf course in one busy night? We can usually do a couple grand just in mini golf. That's pretty cool. That's very cool. Would it cost to cover this whole course? That would be a pretty big number.

That may be, you know, dollars 400,000 here, but I think a higher priority is covering the front area with the two gazebos, building out more of a sports bar vibe with the stage, getting into other entertainment. And, you know, this would be kind of phase two down the road.

How do you turn this thing around from sort of declining very slowly year over year? It's not a big decline, but you've gone from 1.3 down to 1.1. How do we get this back to a growth story?

I think working towards turning this into an everyday venue. Rain or shine, it's party time. So adding some more TV screens on the patio, an open air gazebo, and, a stage for live music and different entertainment.

What would those three things cost all in?

Well, I have a recent quote and for the two large gazebos turfing the side area, large stage out front, it would be anywhere from $100 to 150

If I wasn't here, where would you

get that money from? Is your current investor interested in putting in more money or no? He's pretty much tapped out right now. Yeah. He's... Would he sell his stake? I don't think he'd be interested in selling his stake. So he's tapped out, but he wouldn't sell? Right. Okay. Alright. So what would your other options be? You know, go raise $150,000?

You could do a construction loan or, you know, we just wait it out a bit.

Are you generating enough profits where you would have, you know, 150,000 of profits over the next twelve months to do that investment?

I think, over the next couple of years it would be tough. I think our main thing is

we need to drive revenue. What is driving the revenue today? Can you tell me more about your marketing and sales strategy?

It's mainly been social media, Instagram. We've been doing TikTok videos. If you were

going to pour money into marketing and sales, what would that look like? Is it more another photographer on-site or videographer on-site, more content or what would that look like?

Absolutely. I think more video content, going into, you know, Google Analytics, really making time to go in person

and talking about Putt Pub and passing out flyers. Well, I, I, I love the business concept. This is something that I would spend time at. I'm a competitive guy, so I love putt putt. Anything that gets me away from my computer is sort of fun and helps keep me sort of live and fresh. But I also want to make sure, you know, if I'm cutting a check into a business, it's a good deal. Just business financially makes sense. So if I cut $150,000 check into the business, how would I get my money back? Are you interested in an equity deal or debt deal or something else?

I would say a debt deal would definitely work for us. Why do you prefer that model? Well, I'm not sure my investor would want to give up any equity and I don't think we would either long term.

Why is he holding on to the equity so strongly?

He believes we can turn

it around and we do own the property. He's looking at this like, I believe in Reilly, but my default back of it, it's a land cover play. It's just a real estate deal. Absolutely. Effectively. The same way McDonald's, a lot of people say it's a burger company. No, it's a real estate company, right? Because they own all the real estate and very high value intersections. So same concept here. Right. Interesting. Okay. So if we did a

debt deal, I guess a couple of questions there. I wouldn't want to sit behind any other debt providers. I don't want be in first position in terms of on top of the collateral, right? Is there any other debt on the balance sheet today?

One construction loan we took out that for about 48,000 right now. And we've just been doing minimum payment, which is fine for us right now. It's very low interest.

How much is the mortgage?

It's at about 1.6.

Okay. Well, that's a big deal. Right. How do we get around? Because what I was thinking is, okay, if I put in $150,000, what do I collateralize it with? Very easy thing to collateralize with is the building or the alcohol or the furniture, things like that. But I can't collateralize it with your most valuable asset because the bank is collateralized by that already. Yeah. So 1,600,000 of debt plus the 48 k with your bank. So now

the company has more debt on the balance sheet than total annual revenue. So then I would see that as over levered. It's hard for me to get a deal done there. Right. Are there any other assets I could collateralize against since the bank already has collateralized against the building?

Yeah, we have a $45,000 food trailer.

Okay. That's paid off. That's debt free. Right. Okay. That's a good idea. Is there anything else like that? Like, you added up all the value of, the furniture and things like that, that's probably, like, $20.30 k. We just got, you know, our tax appraisal for

furniture, fixture, equipment, the walk in cooler, all the equipment, the food trailer. And that was 52,000, but that might've been a Okay. Favorable

So you too, this is good for you guys to hear too along with Reilly. When I do deals like this, what I'm thinking about is how strong is the asset I'm collateralizing against because I I don't think Reilly will ever do this, but I always have to plan for the worst case scenario. So let's say Reilly gets hit by a bus and the other investor can't step in and run this business. I've got to think how

can I go in and take over the food truck, the the tables and things, go sell them on Facebook marketplace? What would be the resale value? And typically the resale value is gonna be about one third of what the appraised value was. So what I'm thinking is if I write a check for a $100,000, I want collateral coverage of something like 300 ks, a three X ratio. So Reilly, the reason that's relevant for our deal potentially

is if I was gonna write a $150,000 check, I'm hunting for assets equal to about, you know, dollars 400, dollars 500,000, which you just don't have right now. So would you be open to a smaller deal where I'm collateralized against just the truck and the furniture, which is about $110,000 worth of collateralization?

Absolutely. I'd be open to any offer that would work towards us doing everything we need to do to become an everyday venue.

If it was only a deal for $50,000 what could you actually get done and could that improvement actually drive more revenue?

Definitely the one side gazebo and the stage.

How much time would you need me to, would you need to pay me back the 50 ks?

I would

say two to three years. I would ask for a return on my money of something like 1.5 X the amount I put in. So I could make you an offer that is $50,000 today, paid back 1.5 X that, right? So $75,000 over two years. Would a structure like that work for you? Potentially. What do profit margins look like today?

Right now it's about 20%

It's still 20% cause you said the first year was 20% but I was reading your body language and it sounds like it might have gotten worse.

Well first year we were closer to 50% but again we were paying a small lease, we weren't having to pay taxes, we hadn't made all the improvements. Now it's rated about 20%, 18 to 20%.

So just to be clear on $90,000 of average monthly sales, that puts you at the 1,100,000 run rate, you're taking to the bottom line of profits every month something like $18,000 Think about that in terms of what your actual P and L monthly looks like. Could you service that debt? Definitely. Okay, that's a quick answer. You're just going, okay, we're doing $18,000 a profit every month. That should easily be doable. Right. I'll make you an offer.

We'll do $50,000 paid back $75,000 on a monthly basis over twenty four months. So it comes out, I think you said about $3,000 a month. Does that work for you?

That sounds pretty good. Now I would need to run it by my partner. I think we have a deal.

Alright. I'll bribe the hell out of your partner. We'll get the deal done.

Let's make it happen. Thank you so much. Yeah. It's really good to meet you. Congratulations on the business, man. Thank you.

If you guys liked that deal, remember, new episodes drop every Wednesday. Click here to subscribe so you don't miss out. Also, wanna see more deals like this one? Click here to see the next deal immediately.