The Third Place

How David and Amanda built Ballers.

You feel it the moment you drive up to the converted PECO plant. The graffiti on the soccer wall as you pull in. The way the building draws you into Fishtown. The height, The sheer weight of it. This used to be an electric plant. Now it's the coolest urban country club to open in Fishtown.

Not to boast, as they say, but I am the ideal Ballers customer. I'm not just the guy who plays padel almost daily. I use all of it. I'm in the locker room. At the golf simulator. Reading the art coffee table books strategically placed around the space from Amanda. I'm in the sauna. Eating in the restaurant. Working at an open table during the day. 

As Renée said to Tom Cruise, you had me at hello. (Look it up.)

So when I got the chance to talk to David Gutstadt and Amanda Potter, the CEO and Chief Creative Officer who built this place, I wasn't going to ask them about the business. I wanted to know how two people found a building, found each other, and built the third place I actually want to be in. 

(Home with my wife and the art studio come first - hence a more than respectable third)

Here's what I learned.

It was all about the building. 

David has been in hospitality real estate for a long time. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Related. He ran Equinox's hotel division. He started the Fitler Club which is a super unique workspace experience in center city Philly. Ballers is his fourth thing.

"This is a case of the space inspiring the idea rather than the idea inspiring the space. That building was never going to be a restaurant or a hotel. The scale was wrong for anything except what we ended up doing." (David)

David didn't walk into the PECO Electric plant with a deck and a pitch. He actually walked in with a completely different idea. He saw through the decay and graffiti and saw the future. The name Ballers came to him as clearly as the concept did, standing inside that building. Looking at it in its current form, it hit him like a brick.

The ceiling was the deal closer.

Padel needs height. You want to throw up big lobs and throw off your competitors. That's the actual physical constraint of the sport. And building 30-foot ceilings from scratch would be massively expensive.

"Padel needs 30-foot ceilings. You cannot cost-effectively build 30-foot ceilings from scratch. The building had them because it was an electric plant. That's the whole reason padel became the anchor." (David)

David, perhaps leaning on his days playing tennis at Princeton, realized the unique height and space were perfect for multiple racquet sports. He saw pickleball courts. He saw squash. He saw golf simulators. And of course, he saw Padel. Equally important, he designed it almost in a modular fashion. One sport fades in popularity, another becomes the thing. You adjust. You swap out. The building lets you.

Two people, two roles, one project.

Here's what I love most about Ballers. It's not a singular vision. It's two people, two roles, one project.

He came to Philly to build Fitler Club and asked Amanda to help design it. Then they married. Then they built Ballers together.

"David and I have been building things together for a long time. Equinox, Fitler, now Ballers. The division of labor works because we actually see the world differently, and we respect the difference." (Amanda)

David is CEO. Real estate, finance, hospitality operations, the ambition and expansion. Amanda is Chief Creative Officer. Architect by training, design systems thinker from her Equinox days, the person who makes the brand cohere. He runs the business. She owns the vision.

The urban country club, with intention.

Ballers is turning the country club model on its head. Part necessity, part opportuntiy.

"It's an urban version of a country club. The belonging, the ritual, the design quality, those we kept. The exclusion, the stuffiness, the coded gatekeeping, those we rejected." (Amanda)

Equally fascinating is that Ballers is a reflection of Amanda's interests. That's how Tim and I built Rotary. We built what we wanted and assumed many would like the same. Amanda is doing the same thing here. Ballers is open, inclusive, urban, equal parts culture and fitness. I often describe Ballers as taking the magazine Victory Journal brought to life. Amanda built this through the eyes of a designer, not a marketer. You can feel it in every corner.

Design as a system, not decoration.

What makes Ballers scale is that Amanda took the Equinox design standards system she helped build, and took it to another level here.

"Each city has its own personality. Philadelphia is different from Boston is different from LA. But Ballers has to be Ballers everywhere. What holds it together is a system, not a look." (Amanda)

The unique infrastructure. The photography. The language. The intentful design and branding throughout the plant. You don't find this at other country clubs. Those feel old and stuffy. This is new and fresh. And as they build each location, first Philly, now Boston, next LA, they all feel the same but unique. It's like a painter with a distinctive style. No matter what they paint and how it differs, you can tell it's theirs. You can tell it's a Ballers project.

The restaurant rebrand is the partnership in real time.

I'm excited about all of Ballers, but I'm particularly intrigued by the restaurant rebrand coming this September.

Here's what I often wondered. What if, unlike a country club where the restaurant is just part of the fabric, you gave it its own voice, its own brand, its own entity? Amanda knows this. That's what they're launching in a few weeks. Amanda is leading the creative. David is backing the strategic bet. A rebrand inside the venue, a bet that the restaurant can carry its own weight. 

It's the partnership in action, in real time.  I got a sneak peak.  Can’t wait for you all to see it soon.

Where this goes.

David and Amanda have huge ambitions.

"We want to open 50-plus locations in the next 7 to 10 years. That's the pace we're building toward." (David)

The country club model is dying. Nobody wants to pay a large initiation fee, monthly dues, and a required quarterly restaurant spend. That model, and the client base that supported it, is old and tired. This generation wants inclusiveness. Fun. Flexibility. One place that fits your day. Wellness, work, entertainment, sport, food. Ballers is the model of the future.

The third place.

I was drawn to Ballers not because of padel, but because of the look and feel.

I see every element of design Amanda has added. I see the small touches that make it feel so unique. A place you can spend your day in. It's the mix of art, culture, and sport that gets me. The padel was almost secondary once I walked through the door.

When you put on a Ballers cap or a shirt and walk around town, you're making a statement about what's new and what's next. Not what's old and tired.

"Come one. Come ball." (David and Amanda)

Take a look at what they're building at ballers-us.com.