Mini golf restaurant Urban Putt selling to Australian firm

Downtown Denver’s mini golf bar and restaurant is getting a new owner — and nine more holes.

Steve Fox, who opened Urban Putt at 1201 18th St. in September 2019, told Businessden Tuesday that he’s selling the business’ assets to an Australian company called Funlab.

Funlab operates a similar concept called Holey Moley. Fox said the Denver location will close in June for renovations and reopen in August as a Holey Moley.

As part of the deal set to close June 12, Fox also is selling his Urban Putt location in San Francisco, which he opened in 2014. But that one won’t be rebranded as quickly.

It’s all part of a broader effort by Funlab to bring the Holey Moley concept to the United States.

“They have a very strong brand in Australia, and they’re coming to the U. S. big-time. … Denver will be their first in the country,” Fox said.

Urban Putt’s Denver location has two nine-hole courses. The renovations will include adding a third course, and the holes will likely be “vastly different” than they are now, Fox said. Urban Putt operates in the former Old Spaghetti Factory space, and the streetcar that both businesses incorporated into their interior design will remain.

“That’s the first question that anyone in Denver asks,” Fox said.

Fox said Funlab plans to “maintain as many of our staff as are willing to stay.”

Fox, who has lived in the Bay Area since 1990, is a former writer and editor for tech trade publications such as CNET and PC World who founded Urban Putt after throwing increasingly elaborate mini golf parties in his home. His investors, he said, are “actual people, not venture capital.”

“I was never out to become a giant corporation. … I figured I’d open a new one every five years,” he said.

Each Urban Putt location is unique.

“It’s not the business model you would choose if you were trying to become a captain of industry,” Fox said.

Funlab, meanwhile, specializes in “competitive socializing experiences,” Fox said. In addition to Holey Moley, according to the company’s website, its concepts include Strike ( bowling), Archie Brothers Cirque Electric (arcade and ticket games), Hijinx Hotel (challenge rooms, not an actual hotel), Red Herring (escape rooms) and La Di Darts.

Fox said he first met Funlab CEO Michael Schreiber in 2016 and kept in touch, although he never expected to do a deal with the company. Schreiber proposed the acquisition late last year.

Fox said the Denver location was “hugely successful, and then the world ended,” referencing the pandemic, which

started about six months after the business opened downtown.

Even now, he said, the location is doing about 75% of its prepandemic business, although that’s enough to put it in the black.

“It’s taken some time for the corporate parties to return,” Fox said.

Urban Putt was on the forefront of the growing trend of pairing classic games with higher- end food and drink options. Puttshack, a mini golf restaurant chain led by a former Topgolf CEO, is preparing to open in Rino. Flight Club, a high- tech darts bar, is going in near Union Station. Lob Denver, a bocce- golf- gamemeets- bar concept, has leased in Lodo.

“People want experiences,” Fox said.

Fox said he likely would not have agreed to sell were it not for the pandemic, which showed him that even the best management can’t prevent certain negative business impacts. And he’s 67 years old, so “there’s a horizon there as well.”

Fox’s deal with Funlab doesn’t include an Urban Putt location he’s planning to open in San Jose, Calif.

He’s licensing the name back from Fun Lab for $1 a year for that location but otherwise has a noncompete, he said.