Who knew the “Beyond” in Bed Bath & Beyond could mean pickleball?
Goleta’s iconic Bed Bath & Beyond store will become an indoor pickleball court this spring.
Ted and Trish Guggenheim, who moved to Santa Barbara from Colorado in 2024, will open a franchise of the Picklr at 189 N. Fairview Ave. in the Fairview Shopping Center. The opening is slated for late April.
“The outdoor courts here are lovely, but we kind of missed the consistency and reliability of indoor courts,” Ted Guggenheim said. “Our goal is to create a choice for people. We are here to add courts and add a new flavor.”
The venue will be open from 6 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week. It will offer seven professional-grade courts, including two official championship-sized areas.
The Guggenheims started looking for a pickleball facility about a year ago and decided to franchise with the Picklr, a national company expected to have about 120 locations by the end of 2026.
They recently offered the News-Press a walk-through of the new facility, where crews were busy renovating the former big-box store. It will include warm-up and cooldown rooms, as well as light fitness equipment, showers, lockers, a community lounge/meeting room, AI training systems, ball machines, a dink wall/court and a pro shop.
The Guggenheims, who have been married for about four years, first played tennis to socialize and meet friends, but they didn’t find the community they were looking for.
“People on the court next to us were playing pickleball, and they were having a blast,” Ted Guggenheim said. “So we said maybe we should give that a try.”
The couple say it’s a sport that’s easy to play, with a low bar for entry.
“You can have fun and start playing within the first few hours of learning,” he said. “Literally anybody can do it.”
They left Colorado because of the cold winters and “being relatively newly married, we thought, ‘Let’s just go start a new life entirely,” Ted Guggenheim said.
Trish Guggenheim was raised in the Bahamas and said she loves being near the ocean. Her husband is a mountain guy, so they have the best of both worlds in Santa Barbara. They are self-professed “dog people,” and enjoy taking their dog — a rescued Anatolian shepherd they call a diva — on walks.
“Being new to the city, it is not an easy market to move into and start making friends,” Ted Guggenheim said.
Pickleball changed that and helped them meet more people in the Santa Barbara community.
“It really became the foundation of most of our friendships since we moved,” Guggenheim said.
Trish Guggenheim said she hopes the new indoor pickleball courts will become a place for people to socialize and network.
In early March applications for “founding lifetime memberships” will be accepted at the Picklr. Members will have unlimited play, free tournaments, clinics and league play, as well as the ability to make reservations.
Players can also drop in, Trish Guggenheim said, adding that she wants the Picklr to be a place for companies to hold events and team-building exercises.
Anyone interested in founding memberships can visit the company’s website.
Ted Guggenheim said the facility will provide more options for pickleball players in the community and should ease the pressure to get a spot at public or private courts. The sport is increasingly popular, and there is a demand for more courts, he said.
Once the Picklr opens, expect to see the Guggenheims playing on the new courts. The husband and wife don’t mind a little friendly competition.
“Technically, she is better,” Ted Guggenheim admitted.
“I am rated a little bit higher, but I think I give a lot more effort,” his wife laughed. “I am a little more competitive.”
