PopStroke opens in Hamlin

PopStroke CEO Greg Bartoli envisioned 5-year-olds being introduced to golf for the first time with their grandparents on the greens of PopStroke Hamlin. 

At the same time, he could see a 25-year-old having a night out with friends, enjoying signature cocktails at the bar and food from Bar Tenders, the restaurant, before or after hitting the links. 

Seniors who don’t want to spend four-plus hours roaming a golf course can take the game on in miniature form. 

Bartoli said PopStroke is designed to be a place for people of all ages to come together. 

Bartoli, General Manager Gage Plentovich and others are celebrating the opening of PopStroke Hamlin, which opened to the public Wednesday, Aug. 6. 

PopStroke Hamlin is the 18th PopStroke location to open since its inception five years ago. It is the second in the Orlando area, with a third expected to open on International Drive next year. 

“It’s always an amazing event for us when we open a new location,” Bartoli said. “This location has been on our radar for a long time, and it seems like we’ve gathered a lot of support from the community. We’re excited to finally bring this experience to what seems like an amazing, vibrant and growing community here in Winter Garden and Hamlin.”

From Wall Street to Southern heat

Photo by Liz Ramos

Bartoli’s journey to PopStroke started in New York, where he worked on Wall Street as an executive at JP Morgan for 15 years. In 2013, he founded JEM Capital, an investment firm specializing in leisure, hospitality, technology and real estate.

The grind of every day on Wall Street was taking its toll, but he had a successful career, Bartoli said, but South Florida was calling his name. 

In 2013, he moved his family to Jupiter and established Lighthouse Cove Adventure Mini Golf as a mini-golf and sports-themed restaurant. 

The inspiration was his own family. His children were 1, 3 and 5 years old at the time, and he wanted a place to bring generations of family members together. 

With the success of Lighthouse Cove, Bartoli went on to open two more locations across Florida, and it served as the proof of concept for his vision. 

Bartoli opened the first PopStroke in 2019 in Port St. Lucie with two signature 18-hole mini golf courses, a full-service bar and restaurant, an ice cream parlor and an enclosed playground. 

Now those in the Horizon West area will be able to experience the elevated mini-golf game or bites unique to the Hamlin location.

Plentovich said Horizon West being a “very up-and-coming area” drew PopStroke to Hamlin. 

“It’s very obvious there’s plenty of land that’s been developed around, so I think we’re going to hit it off really well with the community,” he said. “We’re going to be there and support these new businesses as well. We just want to be a part of the community, and we’re very invested in it.”

Photo by Liz Ramos

On the green

Bartoli said everything at PopStroke is vertically integrated, meaning the business doesn’t rely on third-party vendors to create the PopStroke experience. 

He said each PopStroke location is uniquely designed so all guests have a different experience every time they play. 

“The golf courses we design in-house with professional golf architects,” he said. “Then we have our own team of golf shapers who build real golf courses, and now they’re doing it on a smaller scale. What you see (at PopStroke) is exactly designed and built like a regular, traditional golf course. It’s just kind of small so the elevations, the lines, the putts, the green speeds, it’s all meant to kind of create this unique putting experience that stays true to the game of golf without being as time consuming and as intimidating as a real golf course would be.”

The mini-golf area features two different types of 18-hole courses. The Black Course is ADA accessible for wheelchairs and strollers. The Blue Course, will feature hills, brakes, slants and more. 

At the Hamlin location, Bartoli said there is new, “unbelievable” technology being tested. At each hole, there is a vertical LED screen with cameras. The screen not only will tell golfers what hole they’re on, the par of the hole and other information but also will help with capturing spontaneous moments. 

Each of the golf balls has a chip in it that will be assigned to the golfer through PopStroke’s mobile app. 

“It will not only automatically keep score for you, but if you have a hole-in-one, which are the best celebrations … those cameras will capture every single hole-in-one and the spontaneous celebrations that happen afterwards,” Bartoli said. “Then we’ll be able to share that back with the guests, and they can then broadcast it on their own social media platforms.”

When people don’t want to golf, there is a covered playground for the children in the back of the property as well as games such as foosball and cornhole by the outdoor bar.

On the menu

Photo by Liz Ramos

The mobile app allows people to order drinks from anywhere on the grounds, no matter whether it’s at a table in the restaurant, at the bar or on the mini-golf course. 

“We obviously always have mobile app delivery throughout the property, so those beacons out there know where the golfer is as you play,” Bartoli said. “If you order a drink on the seventh hole, we’ll know when you move onto the eighth hole, because our phones are kind of keeping up with your phones and know exactly where you’re at so we can get you that cocktail.”

Hamlin is unique in that it will be the first PopStroke with Bar Tenders. 

“We believe in having a scratch kitchen,” Bartoli said. “We spend a lot of time on the culinary experience, and that is its own separate identity. We didn’t want it to feel overshadowed by the golf experience, so we created our own brand around what we believe is an unbelievable culinary team.”

The name Bar Tenders stems from two aspects. The first is when Bartoli was a kid, he had a nickname given to him by someone from northern California. With the last name Bartoli, he became known as Bart, which also stood for Bay Area Rapid Transit in California. The second is Bartoli said the restaurant’s chicken tenders are “unbelievable.” In his opinion, they are better than any restaurant’s in the area that are known for their chicken. 

Bartenders also are the only servers at PopStroke, Bartoli said. 

“We have bartenders that run the business and run the dining experience and interface with all of our guests, so instead of having servers, we have bartenders,” he said. 

New to the menu at PopStroke Hamlin is a chicken tender taco, a crispy chicken cobb, a steak wrap and pub chips, which is complimentary to all PopStroke members.

As for the drink menu, PopStroke Hamlin moved away from the drinks being golf themed and rebranded to match the Bar Tenders theme. The menu features cocktails such as The Wingman and The Chick Magnet. Specific to the Hamlin location is Hair of the Bird, which is PopStroke’s take on a bloody mary as it comes with a mini chicken tender.