Oct. 31, 2023

Capitalizing on the popularity of pickleball and craft beer, a brewery in downtown Sioux Falls is combining the two.

The Pickleball Pub by Remedy Brewing Co. is expected to open by the end of the year in a warehouse next to the brewery’s back patio at the 8th & Railroad Center.

The space will include four regulation-size courts, tables and chairs, and other games like shuffleboard and bean bags, said Remedy co-owner Matt Hastad.

“We want it to be a fun, relaxed place where we can try to introduce a lot more people to pickleball but also have the facility set up for those who really want to take it seriously and play,” he said.

The Pickleball Pub will feature an online reservation system that will allow players to rent courts on an hourly basis. Players can bring their own paddles and balls or rent the pub’s equipment.

While no one on the Remedy team is a die-hard pickleball fan, they’ve all “dipped their toe into a little bit, and they’re like, ‘This is really fun,’” Hastad said.

“It’s just fun, easy to pick up, which I think is what’s so important and what endears it to so many people is you don’t have to be a master at it to have fun at it. You don’t have to feel like you’re being out-competed by somebody who’s played it for 10 years. Everybody can step onto the court, and it’s pretty easy to do.”

Players will order beer and food in the Remedy taproom and take it over to the courts, which will be just a few steps out the brewery’s back door.

The only rule is “please, please don’t take the beer onto the courts,” Hastad said with a smile. “We’ll have tables and chairs next to the courts for those that want to have a beverage there during the break, take a sip.”

In honor of the new addition, there will be new beer and food items.

“The guys have been playing around with a few different recipes,” Hastad said of the brewers. “Because as a pickleball pub, you want to have a beer to go along with it.”

The addition of the courts will lead to expanded hours for Remedy.

“With this switch, we are going to be dipping our toe into opening for lunch as well. So that way, we can do a lunch and a beer and come down and play some pickleball and whatnot.”

Eventually, The Pickleball Pub could include a membership with a monthly fee that gives players 24/7 access to the courts with a coded entry system on the door.

“At the end of the day, what we really want is to just have an amazing experience where you can come down, you feel like you’re taken care of, you can have some fun, play pickleball, which isn’t overly strenuous, unless you want it to be.”

Remedy has extra room at its second brewery and taproom at 611 N. West Ave., “but we really felt downtown was the place we wanted to start with this and then see how well it does,” Hastad said.

Remedy at 611 is closed for renovations to the taproom, and more news is coming there too.

“We’re looking to make a big announcement about some of the plans that we have coming up,” Hastad said.

The downtown warehouse has 14,000 square feet, more than what’s needed for the courts, so Remedy will use some of the extra room for storage, which currently is scattered throughout the property.

The site has room for more courts, but there are other possibilities there as well, Hastad said.

“We want to start with this vision. We’ve got 10 different directions we might take it in the future, depending on how well it does and what type of response we get from players.”

At Remedy, the focus is on bringing people together, and the pickleball courts will do that, Hastad said.

“We don’t do a lot with TVs down here because we want people to get together over a pint and have fun and converse and get back to that human connection over a pint of beer. And this is just kind of an extension of that. It adds more things to do while still trying to bring people together. That’s really what it’s all about. It’s about building community and bringing people together.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated Jan. 18, 2024, to reflect a name change for the pub.