Reviewed by: Emily Phillips
Everything you need to know about Camp Pickle—coming to MidCity 2024
BySarah Gronberg
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Reading time: 3 minutes
Good news for pickleball players—and those who loves a good hangout facility. Huntsville is getting its very own pickleball center, called Camp Pickle. Coming 2024 to MidCity, Camp Pickle will be a uniquely exciting addition to our sports and entertainment scene.
What is Camp Pickle?
Camp Pickle is a franchise set to be in 10 cities by 2026, but Huntsville is its first location.
Robert Thompson is the creator of the Camp Pickle concept, which is not just a picklball rec center. It’s meant to be an experience that’s immersive and cross-generational.
“Camp Pickle is where the playful come to eat, the hungry to compete, and everyone—young and old, dinkers and bangers, meet.”
Camp Pickle’s Website
Designed with a 1940s summer camp vibe in mind, Camp Pickle will feature both indoor and outdoor pickleball. Plus, there will be other games reminiscent of summer camp like horseshoes and darts.
And if that wasn’t enough, there will also be food and beverage available, with wood-fired menu items in line with the campground theme. There will be fire pits, cabanas and plenty of other spots to relax and have fun.
The nostalgic facility and all its features will be about 50,000 square feet when complete.
The founder
Robert Thompson is the former CEO of Punch Bowl Social behind the new Camp Pickle. He is the founder and CEO of Angevin and Co., a hospitality company. Angevin and Co. has a number of brands, including Jaguar Bolera, Frenchmen Hotel, Three Saints Revival and more.
Now, the Thompson’s family of brands includes Camp Pickle.
In his social media announcement, Thompson said that his company, with Camp Pickle, was looking to, “create a concept that would appeal to the widest spectrum of eatertainment consumers that the category has ever seen.”
Thompson said Camp Pickle will be, “An immersive environment set in a 1940s national park and summer camp culture with (big surprise) scratch kitchen and craft cocktail elements to appeal to the pickleball diehards, hungry and thirsty non-pickleball sporting guests from all around, and private event customers.”
The pickleball craze
The pickleball scene is surging in popularity. Thompson noted in his announcement that there are currently 5 million pickleball players, a number that is expected to grow by 6 times by 2030—reaching 30 million in the next 8 years.
Pickleball was invented in 1965. It’s a mixture of ping pong, tennis and badminton that appeals to all ages and is noted for being a very social game.
BONUS: Check out our Huntsville pickleball guide—what the sport’s all about, where you can play in Huntsville and how to get started.
Huntsville’s on top of this craze, and we’re excited to see how Camp Pickle enhances MidCity’s atmosphere and Huntsville’s overall recreation scene.
Here’s how to stay connected to all of Camp Pickle’s and MidCity’s updates.
There’s lots more going on in MidCity besides this new development. A new $110M hospitality development named Anthem House is coming in 2025, and the MidCity Accelerator Foundation just got a 500k donation from Synovus Bank.
Make sure you’ve subscribed to the Hville Blast newsletter to stay updated on all the new developments in MidCity and beyond. Use our hashtag #hvilleblast or tag us @hvilleblast on social media to tell us what you think about Camp Pickle!
