Pair Putters With Potables at America’s Best Mini Golf Bars

When I was a kid, mini golf was one of my favorite activities. My family and I would tee off at Pirate’s Cove in New Hampshire’s White Mountains or at Mel’s Funway in Litchfield, Connecticut, where I’m pretty sure I spent a couple birthdays gathered around ice cream cake. As an adult, mini golf is still one of my favorite activities, though nowadays I’m swapping ice cream cake for beer and cocktails.

Mini golf has experienced a bit of a maximalist glow-up in recent years, booming to a billion-dollar industry and fueling tourism in kitschy vacation destinations like Myrtle Beach and Disney World. Part of that upsurge can be attested to the introduction and evolution of the mini golf bar. Like other leisure social sports a la bowling and darts, mini golf is an activity that lends itself well to a slight buzz. And at the very least, it can soften the frustration of knocking your ball into a pond.

Across the United States, mini golf bars have ballooned into whimsical wonderlands, from burgeoning sports chains to indie operations done-up in tipsy nostalgia. If you too are obsessed with this summertime activity, put these 10 mini golf courses and bars on your shortlist.

Puttery

With locations in Miami, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York City, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and beyond, this fast-growing chain has emerged as the gold standard of mini golf boozification. Originally opened in the Dallas area in 2021, it’s an all-ages concept that offers multiple immersive courses and bars at each location, along with lounge areas and outdoor patios. My husband and I visited the D.C. location, which has two bars and three courses with themes like “art museum,” which is lined with Campbell’s Soup cans and Italianate statues. There’s a full food menu and drinks that guests can take onto the green. The bar skews cocktail-centric, with high-quality offerings like the nutmeg-tinged Tranquilizer, made with rum, coconut, pineapple and orange.

Puttshack

Born in the UK from the founders behind other boozy social sports like AceBounce, Flight Club and TopGolf, Puttshack is another chain that first teed off stateside in Atlanta in 2021. Today, the company boasts locations from Scottsdale, Arizona to Boston. Kid-friendly by day and adults-only by night, the calling card here is Puttshack’s Trackaball Technology, which eschews pencils and paper for digitized courses that automatically track every putt. We played at the Nashville, Tennessee location, which has four courses and whimsical holes that make you feel like you’re putting your way through an arcade or casino floor. Expect to find eclectic bites like Lebanese hummus and Greek gyro sliders, while portable drinks include Porn Star Martinis, Puttshack Palomas and a robust wine selection.

Magic Mini Golf

Decked out like a steampunk circus, Magic Mini Golf is a veritable wonderland for kids and adults alike in St. Louis’s Delmar Loop. We stumbled across it when we were staying in a hotel across the street and couldn’t help but notice the mini Ferris wheel and giraffe statues through the window. Along with shuffleboard, arcade games, pizza and a fully-stocked bar, the 18-hole course is lined with pirate ships, super-sized frogs, vintage magic posters and Humpty Dumpty. There’s also a resident magician and even a Magic Wedding Chapel where the ordained staff can legally marry you after a round of mini golf.

Big Mini Putt Club

With two locations in Chicago and another in Grand Rapids, Michigan, family-friendly Big Mini Putt Club is leaving a big impression in the Great Lakes region. More minimalist and less splashy with straightforward holes and lounge-y decor, each location features nine-hole courses with food menus (think pizza, cauliflower wings and giant pretzels) and playful cocktails like Peachy Palmers, Golden Tee Margaritas and the tequila-based Bogey Buzz.

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Holey Moley

Things get wonderfully wonky at Holey Moley, a trippy and tipsy mini golf concept with outposts in California, Denver and Texas. Billing itself as the “USA’s craziest and most unique mini golf venue,” nine- to 18-hole courses ratchet up the wild with themes like candy shop, the moon, shark-infested waters and grandma’s bedroom, complete with a bedpan. Most venues allow kids by day but shift to adults-only in the evening. The food menu is just as fun, with bites like Southern fried buffalo chicken sliders and elote corn ribs. Signature cocktails include the vodka-spiked Watermelon Twinkle Toes and Hole In One, made with strawberry-infused rum, lime and sugar.

Birdie Time

Like a sprawling beer hall that just so happens to contain Sasquatch replicas and animal-print golf balls, Portland, Oregon’s Birdie Time is part sports pub and part mini golf course, all under the same timber-clad roof. Drinks-wise, the bar — which opened in 2019 — specializes in local beer with more than 30 regional varieties on-tap, and food includes pub grub like wings, fried ravioli, waffle fries and burgers. Golf-wise, there are both indoor and outdoor spaces, bedecked with very PNW obstacles like beer kegs and tree stumps, and there’s a golf simulator for those looking to swing a little harder. It’s adults-only after 7 p.m.

Putt Pub

From foot-long hot dogs and nacho-stuffed burritos to pints of beer and 18 holes of sports-themed mini golf smattered with obstacles like bowling pins and foosball figurines, Putt Pub is proof that everything is indeed bigger in Texas. The family-friendly San Marcos spot (21+ after 8 p.m.) boasts two full bars slinging quirky cocktails (e.g. Sour Patch-infused slushies), indoor and outdoor seating, two food menus and fun events like adult water balloon fights. Happy Gilmore fans will appreciate the Ace Hole, proclaiming “You Will Not Make This Putt Jackass!!”

Sinkers Lounge

The swanky, family-friendly Sinkers Lounge is a Kansas City, Missouri concoction (with three area locations) that pairs chic decor, top-shelf cocktails and a stylish, plant-draped bar with tabletop golf and colorful putting courses with holes that veer from straightforward to heart-shaped. In lieu of typical greens, each hole is designed in hues like royal blue and gilded yellow. Shareable dishes run the gamut from tatchos to mini kraut dogs, and The Albatross Bar shakes and stirs drinks like the Bogey Brambles (gin, prickly pear, lemon juice, soda, flamed rosemary) and Off the Pin (bourbon, pomegranate juice, lemon, simple syrup, Angostura bitters).

Old Town Putt

Located In Fort Collins, Colorado, Old Town Putt is the kind of place that’ll make you feel like a kid again, but with beer instead of juice. Along with an indoor nine-hole mini golf course, the gaming mecca includes darts, ping pong and arcade requisites like Skee-Ball, four-player Pac-Man and Big-Buck Hunter. The bar features a full slate of Colorado beers, seltzers and classic-inspired cocktails, like an Espresso Martini and barrel-aged maple Old Fashioned. There are also a few frozen libations, including a mango Daiquiri and French 75. Mini golf, exclusive to adults after 7 p.m., skews classic, with fan-favorite obstacles like looped ramps and log tunnels.

PopStroke

Less a mini golf bar and more like a mini golf theme park (and also co-owned by Tiger Woods), PopStroke is a sprawling, multi-unit concept with locations spanning from Florida to Nevada. Each one touts two custom-designed, 18-hole courses amidst lush landscaping, strewn with sand traps, Jumbotrons, full-service restaurants and bars, cornhole, and even ice cream parlors and playgrounds. The company has its own app, allowing customers to easily keep score and order drinks like Caddy Issues, made with lemonade vodka, lime juice, triple sec and cranberry. Food is classic Americana comfort — think nachos and chicken tenders. Conveniently for me, one of PopStroke’s next locations is currently under construction a few blocks from my house in Oklahoma City.