Topgolf plans to open doors in San Jose this week

Venue will offer high-tech game experience, dining, entertainment

SAN JOSE >> Topgolf is slated to open its doors this week in north San Jose’s Alviso district, offering a tech-oriented golf experience — and several hundred jobs — the company said Monday.

The big new venue in San Jose will offer a tech-oriented golf experience, along with dining and a wine bar at its first Bay Area site.

“We are looking to hire up to 600 associates in this venue alone,” said Travis Miller, director of operations at Topgolf San Jose. “We are actively hiring. We have hired about 390 and we are looking to hire another 150 to 200.”

The official opening date is Friday, and the new facility is poised to offer a job boost in Silicon Valley after more than a year of dreary economic setbacks in the wake of coronavirus-linked business shutdowns.

“Being part of this community is important for us,” Miller said. “Bringing jobs to this area is a great aspect of this.”

Topgolf operates high-tech driving ranges that allow people to hit golf balls equipped with microchips that record distance and accuracy.

Guests can also visualize the flight of their shot through the company’s TopTracer technology, which appeared during the recent network broadcast of The Master’s Tournament.

Topgolf San Jose, along with the company’s location in Las Vegas, will be the largest of the approximately 66 venues that Topgolf operates worldwide, according to Miller. The new venue will be located at 4701 N. First St. in San Jose.

“San Jose and Silicon Valley is an outstanding area,” Miller said. “Tourism will come back, businesses will come back, people are going to want to do things. There are great people here in the Bay Area, nearby areas like Santa Cruz, and this is going to be a place to offer them some fun.”

The new facility is the first for Topgolf in the Bay Area and the second in California. The other existing Topgolf site in California is in the Placer County city of Roseville. Topgolf has broken ground on two other California venues: Ontario in San Bernardino County and El Segundo adjacent to Los Angeles.

More than 120 bays will be available to hit golf balls. Each bay is climate-controlled.

“The San Jose venue will feature a wine lounge and tasting area on the third level, in addition to the chef-driven food and beverage menu in their outdoor hitting bays while safely enjoying the outdoor fun,” Topgolf stated.

Topgolf San Jose was designed to be a green building that would be LEEDcertified, according to Miller.

“It is designed to be energy efficient, with solar panels on the roof,” Miller said. “We are also using a greener type of turf. We have dots all over the windows to keep the birds from flying into the glass.”

At the new San Jose site, guests will be able to play a simulator of the iconic Pebble Beach Golf Links in Monterey County and will also be able to play a golf-oriented “Angry Birds” game.

Management, administrative, sales, server, bartender, busser, food and drink runners, guest services, kitchen, and maintenance were among the jobs listed in recent weeks as being available through a “now hiring” effort for the San Jose venue, according to the careers section on the Topgolf website.

“Topgolf’s opening provides another hopeful sign that San Jose is poised to make a strong rebound as we emerge from this pandemic,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said in a recent interview regarding the venue’s upcoming opening day.

As was the case with countless development efforts, the economic uncertainties unleashed by the coronavirus delayed the opening date for Topgolf San Jose.

“We are looking forward to being in this area,” Miller said. “There were a lot of challenges and a lot of difficulties. We are happy to be getting things going. This is a long time coming for this venue.”