TruGolf’s First Flagship Franchise Opens: The Eatertainment War Begins
TruGolf Links opened its first flagship franchise location last week at Plaza at Cherry Hill in New Jersey. It’s 6,045 square feet. Five premium simulator bays. A chef-inspired restaurant with a full bar. The signature Horizon simulator bay has a 17-foot screen on an elevated platform with stadium seating.
The ribbon cutting is August 4 with Cherry Hill Mayor Dave Fleisher. The grand opening celebration runs August 7-8 with PXG’s mobile fitting van, a live radio broadcast, and a closest-to-the-pin contest where winners get Ed Sheeran concert tickets. It’s a production.
But the interesting part isn’t the food or the 17-foot screen. It’s what this opening represents.
TruGolf is a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: TRUG). They’ve been in the simulator manufacturing business since 1983 — that’s 43 years making hardware and software that other people sold. For our reviews of their hardware, see the TruGolf Apogee review and TruGolf LaunchBox review. This is the first time they’re running their own venues. And they’re not just running one.
The Numbers Matter
The Cherry Hill location is the first of what TruGolf says will be a network of franchise locations across the country. They’ve already signed Regional Developers in New Jersey, New York, and Illinois representing commitments for more than 100 future locations. The model works like this: a Regional Developer buys a territory with a population of 1 million or more, opens a flagship location, then expands with company-owned and independently owned franchise units.
Nick Reimondo is the Cherry Hill franchisee. He’s got 17 years of hospitality experience and he’s the regional developer for New Jersey and Pennsylvania. His plan is 40 locations across North and Central Jersey plus a few in Bucks County, PA.
The pricing is interesting too. $60 per hour for a bay. Memberships starting at $99 per month. That’s competitive with Five Iron, which runs $40-80 per hour depending on location and time, and cheaper than the premium private club model that places like Golf & Social use.
Why This Matters for the Industry
Let me zoom out for a second.
The indoor golf venue space is getting crowded, and it’s happening fast. Five Iron Golf has been on a tear — they just announced a 12-bay, 30,000-square-foot location on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. Topgolf’s Swing Suite model is expanding into hotels and resorts. Another Nine is doing the 24/7 keycard-access model and recently raised $2 million from existing investors. Crossroads Golf KC opened in Kansas City last week with five Trackman bays and a craft bar.
TruGolf is arriving late to this party, but they’re arriving with a structural advantage: they own the hardware. Five Iron has to buy Trackman units. Topgolf uses Toptracer. Another Nine uses Trackman. Crossroads Golf KC uses Trackman. Every one of those venues is paying a hardware margin to somebody else.
TruGolf is a Nasdaq-listed manufacturer that can build its own simulators. The Horizon bay in Cherry Hill — the one with the 17-foot screen and elevated platform — runs on TruGolf’s own hardware and software. The company controls the full stack. That means they can offer franchise economics that competitors can’t match, because they’re capturing the equipment margin and the franchise royalty.
The question is whether that advantage matters enough to catch up on location count. Five Iron has 40+ locations open or in development. Topgolf’s Swing Suite is in hundreds of hotels. Another Nine is opening locations at a pace that suggests they’re aiming for ubiquity, not just presence.
TruGolf’s 100+ committed locations is a statement of intent, but commitments aren’t open doors. The Cherry Hill location is proof of concept. Whether the model scales depends on whether regional developers can find the right real estate, build the right teams, and deliver the same experience in Trenton that they’re delivering in Cherry Hill.
The Eatertainment Factor
The other thing worth paying attention to is how TruGolf is positioning the experience. This is not a sim-only facility. The press release mentions “arcade games” alongside the simulators. The food is chef-inspired, not hot-dog-and-beer. The bar serves handcrafted cocktails. The location is adjacent to Cherry Hill Mall, anchored by Guitar Center, Aldi, and Total Wine & More.
This is the “eatertainment” model — the same playbook that Topgolf perfected and that every sim venue operator is now trying to replicate. The theory is that pure golf sims are a niche product that appeals to a small, committed audience. Add food, drinks, arcade games, and a prime retail location, and you turn a niche into a destination.
The risk is that you end up being a restaurant with simulators attached, competing against every other restaurant in the mall parking lot. But the reward is that you capture the group-event, date-night, birthday-party audience that makes the economics work. A solo golfer booking a simulator bay at 2 PM on a Tuesday is not the business model. A group of eight renting two bays for two hours on a Friday night, eating dinner, and drinking cocktails — that’s the business model.
What I’m Watching
Three things.
First, the pace of openings. TruGolf has been signing leases throughout 2026 — Westbury (April), Farmingdale (May), Miller Place (June), Romeoville, IL (July). Cherry Hill is the first one actually open. If they can convert those signed leases into operating venues before the end of 2026, that’s real momentum. If not, it’s a stock story, not a sim story.
Second, the hardware advantage. TruGolf’s simulators are fine — they’ve been selling them for decades. But the market has shifted. GSPro is the dominant software platform for home sims, and TruGolf runs its own software (E6 Connect and E6 Apex). The home sim enthusiast building a garage setup is not the target customer for TruGolf Links, but the gap between what the franchise uses and what the enthusiast uses is worth noting.
Third, the regional developer model. Most sim venue chains are company-owned or master-franchise operations. TruGolf’s model of selling territories to regional developers who then recruit sub-franchisees is more aggressive. It could accelerate growth. It could also create quality-control problems. The Cherry Hill location looks excellent. The question is whether the 40th location in a mid-market suburb looks just as good.
Pricing at Cherry Hill starts at $60 per hour. Memberships at $99 per month. The grand opening is August 7-8. If you’re in South Jersey, it’s worth a trip to see what a Nasdaq-listed sim company thinks a premium venue should look like. I’ll be watching to see if the next one looks the same.
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