Pickle and Bags offers wide open environment for pickleball aficionados

Pickleball is a rising star in the world of sports, and the activity’s popularity has triggered the growth of a new small business in Oshkosh. Pickle and Bags, which opened last November, provides local players with dedicated courts, space and equipment to play both its namesake as well as cornhole. In addition to access to the courts through paid memberships, Pickle and Bags offers venue space and lessons, which together bring in a few hundred players each week. Several times a month, the courts open for free to the community on Open Play Nights, when equipment is available for rental to players still discovering the sport.

Owner Jeff Ehrike was inspired to start the business when he realized that there was a growing demand for involvement in the sport but limited opportunities to play in the Oshkosh area.

“I absolutely love the sport, and I knew it was growing at a pace faster than the supply of pickleball courts in the area,” he explained. 

When constructing Pickle and Bags, it made sense to Ehrike to offer cornhole in addition to pickleball, and the business owes its names to the two games.

“Pickleball and cornhole are both growing sports that anyone can play. Both need big, open space,” he reasoned. “I figured they’re a good combo.”

Ehrike believes that Pickle and Bags fosters a uniquely welcoming community of players because of the unrivaled amenities the business offers. 

“No other place has dedicated courts. Plus, we have a bar area, which no other pickleball facility in the area does,” he said. “So we’re able to really let a social sport be social.”

At any given time, a spectator can expect to find seasoned players and amateurs alike dashing across the courts and reaching to return a volley from across the net, laughing with one another and working to improve their skills. Jason Lasee, a math teacher at West who has been playing pickleball for more than four years, thinks that the nature of the sport allows for the cultivation of its characteristic positive culture.

“I have met an entirely new friend group through pickleball that does many other things together. I think that most people that play recreationally are more laid back than in some other sports, meaning there are not many arguments about a call, etc.,” he said.

In his own experience, Lasee has found the sport highly rewarding, and he thinks that one of the draws is its wide accessibility. 

“I started playing pickleball in the summer of 2019. They put in a court at Jones Park near our house, so I decided to get some cheap ‘Amazon special’ paddles for my wife and I,” he said. “Anyone can play and start at a pretty inexpensive amount.”

Kurt Hielsberg, a West alumni who played on the football, basketball, and track teams, started playing pickleball a year ago after watching the sport on TV. He believes the sport has much to offer potential players. 

“It’s good exercise, I think, depending on what age bracket you’re in,” he said. “It’s just a good sport for everyone to play.” 

Many find pickleball to be an easy game to learn to play. Although it has a few nuanced rules, such as scoring, that can change from tournament to tournament, and limitations on how the ball can be hit in a designated no volley zone, the sport shares many features with others that novice players might have been exposed to.

“Pickleball is kind of a cross between table tennis and tennis,” Lasee said. 

The sport has been around for several decades, but its popularity has boomed in the past few years, as has its coverage in the media. Ehrike discovered his love for the sport relatively recently, but he saw in it the opportunity to start a thriving business that could help strengthen the local community.

“I started playing pickleball during COVID,” he said. “I had been briefly introduced to the sport before, but since there was nothing to do during COVID, I started playing the first day my business got shut down and then got addicted over the time span that my gym had to be closed.”

Getting his business up and running was not as easy as imagining its potential in the market. Searching for a space to open the courts took about a year, and this was just the beginning of the process.

“The space needed to be completely renovated and gutted into a big, open shell. I put in the bar and courts myself with the help of some friends," Ehrike said. "This took months of working from early morning to midnight, seven days a week.”

Ehrike says that he anticipated such challenges, though, and prepared as best he could to overcome them.

“Many new businesses fail early on, and I believe it’s because they think it'’s going to be easy,” he said. “I recommend you have to plan for the worst and hope for the best.” 

Ehrike does not yet have a plan for how the business will expand in the future, but is ready for the work that it will take to continue serving Oshkosh’s pickleball community as the sport expands in the region.

“For the first year, we’ll continue to grind,” he said. “100-hour weeks, and then we go from there.”

by Aria Boehler

Published April 1st 2024

Oshkosh West Index Volume 120 Issue VI