GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A new restaurant opening in downtown Grand Rapids this month offers golf entertainment alongside food.
Gimme’s Par and Grill is set to officially open Nov. 15 at the intersection of Ottawa Avenue and Louis Street. The ‘eat-ertainment’ venue will offer a full-service restaurant, serving up American fare and nine golf bays.
On the menu are handheld, shareable items created to be enjoyed while golfing in the bays. There is also a variety of other entrees, like ribeye, salmon and fish and chip entrees, and other items like pizzas, fried olives, chicken tenders and calamari.
The golf bays, which use Trackman technology, are not just for die-hard golfers, managing partner Sam Stover said.
“Serious golfers that want to really get better at their game can use swing analysis to
improve,” he said. “If you’re just wanting to entertain yourself and play simulator golf, you can utilize the bays for that as well. Or if you’re just coming to have fun, there’s different kinds of games on there. There’s putting games, there’s a game called Scrap Yard, there’s a cannonball game.”
Three of the bays are equipped for several other sports, like cornhole, basketball, baseball and football. There’s a zombie dodgeball game that offers options to play with ghosts or in a graveyard.
The restaurant is set up to host events like corporate events, birthday parties and bachelor or bachelorette parties. Stover said there have already been inquiries about renting it out for major sporting events like the Super Bowl because the golf bay screens can also be used for streaming.
Gimme’s Par and Grill at the intersection of Ottawa Avenue and Louis Street in downtown Grand Rapids. (Oct. 31, 2024) 
Gimme’s Par and Grill at the intersection of Ottawa Avenue and Louis Street in downtown Grand Rapids. (Oct. 31, 2024) 
Gimme’s Par and Grill at the intersection of Ottawa Avenue and Louis Street in downtown Grand Rapids. (Oct. 31, 2024) 
Gimme’s Par and Grill at the intersection of Ottawa Avenue and Louis Street in downtown Grand Rapids. (Oct. 31, 2024) 
Gimme’s Par and Grill at the intersection of Ottawa Avenue and Louis Street in downtown Grand Rapids. (Oct. 31, 2024) 
Gimme’s Par and Grill at the intersection of Ottawa Avenue and Louis Street in downtown Grand Rapids. (Oct. 31, 2024)
Golf bay rentals will run between $40 and $60 an hour. Gimme’s will offer membership options, with perks like club storage and one hour a day in the bays free.
It will also offer leagues for those of all skillsets. The Fall 2024 Leagues start Monday, prior to the official grand opening.
GOLF, ‘EAT-ERTAINMENT’ GROW IN POPULARITY
Stover, a PGA professional, hopes the venue will help get more people into golf.
“I’ve been in golf pretty much my whole life. My grandfather turned his family farm into a golf course. I grew up on that golf course playing. I have an uncle who’s a PGA professional in Florida, so when I got out of school, I moved to Florida and that got me into the profession,” he said. “I’ve been enjoying growing the game ever since.”
He said he likes encouraging others to enjoy the game as much as he does and helping them get better at it and more involved.
Golf has seen renewed interest post-pandemic, with the National Golf Foundation finding that young players are driving that growth. Stover believes part of that growth stems from venues like Gimme’s, which he said can make the sport less intimidating.
“Sometimes if you’re not a golfer and you go to a golf course, you feel a little intimidated because you’re not comfortable with your surroundings,” he said. “Here it’s more of a friendly, less intimidating atmosphere, so we can get more beginners into the game.”
From there, he said people can gain confidence, allowing them to feel more comfortable going to a golf course.
Gimme’s also follows the trend of restaurant concepts offering entertainment alongside food.
“Shut people at home for a while and it’s inevitable they will eventually want to come out to play,” a Restaurant Business Magazine article on the trend says.
In West Michigan, a lot of those concepts have centered around golf or pickleball. Broad Leaf Brewery and Spirits in Kentwood added two pickleball courts in January of this year, alongside kick pin (a bowling and soccer mashup) and its already-existing arcade games. Big Mini Putt Club opened in downtown Grand Rapids in October with a bar and a nine-hole miniature golf course.
A project underway in Kentwood, Dinks & Dingers, will offer a pickleball club with a restaurant and other entertainment, while the planned Pickle x Pin in Grand Rapids’ West Side will combine both pickleball and golf with a bar. The new Silva venue with bocce ball is expected to open next year in Grand Rapids’ Belknap Lookout neighborhood.
Meanwhile, the Mines Golf Club has just entered the restaurant industry, opening the Gypsum Grill & Event Center last month.
“Everyone is becoming more active,” Stover said. “The days of the dinner date being a dinner and a movie, it’s probably not the same as it was years ago when you have Netflix and things like that that you have access to at your house.”
He also said he has noticed people are more interested in going out as groups, when before it was more common to go out as a couple or as a group of four.
“The ability to serve good food, have great drinks, a variety of different cocktails, and then allow them to either watch entertainment or be a part of the entertainment, to rent a bay to play some golf or to use some of the other multi-sport avenues that we have, just to get out and do something and be active — I think that’s more of what West Michigan is looking for,” he said.