Pickleball POS in Action: How Victory Pickleball Streamlines Complex Operations with GoTab

Victory Pickleball In Illinois Proves GoTab Was Built for Complex Hospitality Environments

Restaurant manager Josh Gowan has spent enough time in hospitality to know the difference between an idea that sounds exciting in a meeting and one that actually works on a Saturday when the building is full. 

Victory Pickleball, he said, had to work in real life.

“When someone walks in here, the experience has to feel easy,” Gowan said. “They should be able to check in, grab a beer, order food and get to their court without feeling like they’re jumping between three different systems.”

That expectation shaped the venue from the beginning.

Located in Loves Park, Illinois, Victory Pickleball operates inside a former indoor soccer facility that has been transformed into a sprawling indoor complex with 15 dedicated pickleball courts, a full kitchen, mezzanine seating, event space, a golf simulator, games and a 30-tap self-pour wall overlooking the action below. It is part sports venue, part restaurant, part social space, and part event destination.

The owner, Tim Ancona, a technology services entrepreneur, envisioned the building functioning as one connected experience. Guests would reserve courts, order food, pour their own beer, attend events and move through the facility without friction. Turning that idea into a working operation, however, required more than standard restaurant technology.

By the time Gowan joined the team about a year ago, Victory Pickleball had already invested heavily in the physical buildout. The club had the technology; GoTab, Court Reserve, and Pour My Beer.  All of this software worked well individually but were not fully integrated.

So Gowan got to work.

His first major goal was to integrate GoTab, CourtReserve and PourMyBeer into one functioning ecosystem, one that would give members more independence while allowing the venue to operate efficiently without adding unnecessary labor across such a large space.

“It was a struggle. It was a little bit at a time,” Gowan said. “We were all kind of learning together. But the goal from the beginning was to figure out how to make everything work together.”

That process took months. It also required constant testing, troubleshooting and adjustment, down to the smallest details of how different phones interacted with QR codes and how guests actually behaved once they were inside the building. What emerged was not just a tech stack, but an operating model.

Today, GoTab is at the center of that model, helping Victory Pickleball turn a sprawling, multi-use venue into an experience that feels simple for guests.

HOW GOTAB POWERS VICTORY PICKLEBALL

• Connects food ordering and payment inside a 54,000 square foot pickleball eatertainment venue
• Supports QR ordering throughout the facility, including pub and court-adjacent spaces
• Works alongside CourtReserve for check-in and member payment workflows
• Integrates with PourMyBeer to support a 30-tap self-pour wall
• Routes orders directly to the KDS, eliminating paper tickets and improving ticket flow during peak service
• Helps members get what they want when they want it, without waiting on full traditional service
• Supports a hybrid hospitality model that keeps service strong without overstaffing
• Gives operators responsive support and flexibility when real-time adjustments are needed

VICTORY PICKLEBALL’S HISTORY

Victory Pickleball sits in Loves Park, a northern Illinois city about 90 minutes west of Chicago with a strong local sports culture and tournament traffic that draws players from across the region. The venue itself began as an indoor tennis club some 50 years ago and transitioned into other sports over time but the key is that it was a large shell with the scale to become something much bigger.

Owner Tim Ancona saw the opportunity to create more than a place to play pickleball. Today the facility includes 15 indoor courts designed for serious play, along with Victory Pickleball Pub, a full-service restaurant and bar positioned above the courts. The pub seats about 80 guests in the center of the building, while two mezzanines accommodate another 80 to 90 people and overlook courts on both sides.

From those mezzanines, guests can watch matches unfold below while ordering food or grabbing a drink from the venue’s 30-tap self-pour wall. The layout intentionally blends sports and hospitality, giving the restaurant and bar a direct view of the action.

The pub serves approachable, crowd-friendly favorites such as smash burgers, wings, tacos and handheld sandwiches, along with shareable appetizers like loaded nachos, Wisconsin cheese curds and pretzel bites. The menu is designed for players grabbing a quick bite between matches as well as spectators settling in to watch the games.

Beyond the courts and restaurant, the venue includes a golf simulator, arcade-style games and a growing events business. Victory Pickleball serves roughly 2,500 members, along with regular tournaments, corporate gatherings and guests who may come for competition, food, drinks or all three.

That scale is part of the appeal, but it also made the guest experience critical.

“We have enough members and we have enough corporate events,” restaurant manager Josh Gowan said. “The majority of our clientele is our regulars.”

Those regulars shape the venue’s pace. Some head straight to the courts. Others stop first for a beer or settle into the pub to watch the action. Tournament weekends bring in families and spectators who may be visiting for the first time.

Victory Pickleball needed a system that could support both groups -- regulars who expect a frictionless experience and new guests who need a little guidance in a venue built for constant movement.

THE CHALLENGE AND HOW GOTAB ANSWERED

The challenge at Victory Pickleball was not getting people in the door. It was making a massive, multi-use venue feel easy once they were inside.

Players check in through CourtReserve. Drinks flow through PourMyBeer. Food orders need to move to the kitchen quickly and accurately. Payments need to be flexible. Events add another layer. Members want speed. First-time guests want clarity. Ownership wanted the whole thing to feel integrated.

That is where GoTab became essential.

Through GoTab’s QR ordering system, guests can browse the menu, place food orders and pay directly from their phones throughout the venue. In the kitchen, orders route through kitchen display systems instead of paper tickets, helping the back of house keep pace during busy service. Since the system is flexible, Victory Pickleball has been able to adapt it around the way guests actually use the building instead of forcing guests into one rigid service style.

“A lot of people love getting the QR code,” Gowan said. “They like ordering their own food. They love pouring their own beer.”

That flexibility also reduced strain on staff. Victory Pickleball did not want to run a large building as if it were a conventional full-service venue, with servers chasing transactions across multiple levels and courts. GoTab helped the team support a more efficient model, one where guests can handle much of the process themselves while staff remain available to guide, greet and help when needed.

The support component also mattered. Gowan repeatedly emphasized GoTab’s customer service as a major reason he would recommend the platform.

“That is the one thing I love, GoTab tech support is just bar none the best,” he said. “I can text GoTab at 8 o’clock on a Friday night, if I’m busy in the kitchen, I can literally text, ‘Hey, I need you to turn off something on my system,’ and it’s turned off.”

For operators, that is not a small point. In a live hospitality environment, especially one with tournaments, members and events constantly in motion, responsive support is part of the product.

“The customer service is so fast and so great,” Gowan said. “If I need something immediately, it’s done.”

POURING BY THE OUNCE, AND LEARNING FROM THE DATA

Victory Pickleball’s 30-tap self-pour wall is one of the venue’s most distinctive features. It is also a clear example of how giving guests more control can influence both experience and revenue.

Guests pour beer and wine by the ounce, allowing them to sample different options instead of committing to a full pint. Industry data around self-pour systems has consistently shown that when guests are able to try smaller pours, they tend to explore more options and overall spend increases.

Gowan said the team quickly saw the same pattern inside Victory Pickleball.

“One of the interesting things we found out from PourMyBeer was that people who sampled and poured multiple small beers drank about 40 percent more than those who didn’t,” Gowan said. “So we immediately started encouraging flights.”

That insight quickly impacted the venue’s strategy. Staff now steer guests toward the tap wall and recommend starting with tasting flights, inviting them to sample several small pours before settling on a full drink. The approach turns the self-pour system into an interactive part of the visit and reflects a broader philosophy behind the venue: when guests are given more control over the experience, they tend to stay engaged longer.

In a venue built around constant movement, the combination of self-pour beverages and mobile ordering keeps lines short, guests engaged, and revenue flowing across multiple touchpoints.

EVENTS, REVENUE AND WHAT COMES NEXT

Victory Pickleball’s business goes beyond everyday play. Corporate events, tournaments and specialty nights are all part of the venue’s operating mix. Gowan said the facility regularly hosts catered lunches, mezzanine bookings and more customized experiences that allow the space to function as both a sports venue and an event destination.

That versatility is one of the reasons the technology matters so much. The building is not serving one type of guest in one type of setting. It is serving members, spectators, event attendees and first-time visitors, often at the same time. Gowan also pointed to the value of integration as the venue’s needs continue to evolve.

“I would 100 percent recommend GoTab,” he shared. “And I would recommend the full integration. It takes time in the beginning, but once you have it implemented and you’ve trained your people on it, it all works together really, really well.”

For him, that recommendation comes from hard-earned experience. He has used other systems. He has lived through the setup. He has watched the venue refine its service model in real time. What stands out is not just that the technology works, but that it helps the building operate in a way that matches the original vision.

“We wanted the whole building to work together,” Gowan said. “Now it does.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Venue: Victory Pickleball, Rockford, Illinois
Concept: Indoor pickleball destination with restaurant, self-pour beverage wall, events and entertainment

GoTab Tools Used:

• GoTab POS and QR ordering
• Kitchen display system (KDS)
• Integration with CourtReserve
• Integration with PourMyBeer
• Flexible mobile payment options
• Hybrid service support for a large-format venue

Why It Works: GoTab helps Victory Pickleball support a high-volume, multi-use venue without exposing the complexity to guests. Members can get what they want when they want it, staff can stay focused on hospitality, and the building can operate with more flexibility and less friction. 

Another bonus: Tipping remained strong even as the venue introduced QR ordering and self-service elements. The team initially assumed guests might stop tipping when they were ordering and paying on their own, but the opposite happened. Guests appreciated having the flexibility to control their experience while still knowing staff were nearby to help if needed. As Josh Gowan explained, “We thought that because our clientele was doing everything themselves that they wouldn’t want to tip. It turns out our clientele doesn’t care. Ninety-five percent of them still want to reward someone that is taking care of them.”

Running a large-format or multi-experience venue? See how GoTab helps operators create seamless guest experiences in multi-use eatertainment venues at GoTab.com. Ask about GoTab’s new Hardware Flex Leasing Program for predictable monthly hardware access.

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