TexasCHLforum.com

jmra wrote:

reh wrote:Went to TopGolf Austin this afternoon (7/16/15) for the first time with the family. We had a great time, but I happened to not be carrying and did not check signage on the way in. On the way out, my wife noticed the 30.06 sign on the door. Let me just say that there is no way that this is a 51% establishment; it's more of a grill-and-bar like Chili's than it is a 6th street bar, even with the two bars (from what I saw, food is definitely a bigger draw than alcohol).

With that said, we won't be going back again until the sign is gone as I do carry most of the time. In fact while there, I was even thinking of recommending it to my CEO as a company outing, but now that won't be happening.

I would think a lot of CHLers are golfers and am very surprised that this business is posted. A little research reveals this company was started in London and is now owned by a private investment group including Callaway Golf. The signage could very well be some legacy from the original London owners, but since I'm not a golfer I don't know anything about Callaway and their policies.

BTW - I will be writing a note to TopGolf.

I'm not surprised by the posting at all. CHL only makes up 3% of the state population and probably half of that number carry on a regular basis. According to a quick google search about 9% of the U.S. Population plays golf. So we are talking about 9% of 1.5% of the general population, about 32,000 people. When we take other things into consideration such as expense and distance from store location we lower that number of potential CHL customers even more, let's say down to 20,000. Now that may sound like a lot but it's not at all. In 2014 Top Golf of Dallas had almost 225,000 visitors. Add the Houston, SA, and Austin numbers to that total and 20,000 represents a very insignificant number to bean counters. Of course we haven't considered how many of those 20,000 would disarm and become a customer anyway - I'd be willing to bet half would. Now we're talking 10,000.
Until you start getting into double digit market share numbers companies are not going to consider your loss of business as significant.