Do you remember the old joke in the late 90’s about how Starbucks was growing so fast that a new Starbucks just opened in the bathroom of a Starbucks? Well, it looks like The Onion may soon have to similarly lampoon the explosive growth of new padel clubs opening in LA.
For some context, recently, I’ve been in touch with the very friendly and accommodating team behind Pura Padel, which just opened three new padel courts this past weekend on the rooftop of a parking structure at a mall known as the Westfield Fashion Square in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of LA.
(In fact, they were even nice enough to invite me to come play at their courts ahead of their grand opening — an invitation which I sorely wish I could have found a way to take them up on).
So, when I then saw a LinkedIn post from MejorSet showing off some courts they just built on the roof of a Westfield shopping mall in LA, I naturally assumed it must be the same club and/or project (and thus, subsequently fell pray to another old joke about why you should never assume anything).
As it turns out though, those courts are actually at another Westfield mall, this one in Century City (about nine miles from from Westfield Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks) and belong to another brand new LA padel club known as Padel Up.
So, yes, there are TWO different new padel clubs launching this month… in LA… on rooftops… at Westfield malls.
While that might not quite qualify as 90’s level Starbucks growth, it certainly makes me think that soon I’m going to have to update this recent article to highlight which cities or possibly even zip codes now have multiple padel clubs, rather than just which states do.
Of course, we all knew this kind of growth was coming. But even so, it’s still pretty shocking — and exciting — to see.
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