Pips & Bounce is a ping pong social club located in Portland, Oregon. On Friday, Eugene and Michael Jung will be featured on Shark Tank as they talk about their unusual club and try to convince one of the sharks to invest.
This unusual club, which now has its own location, started out in 2012 with mobile ping pong parties, and they were popular too!
A couple of years later, the Jung brothers realized that they needed their own place to play ping pong rather than setting up shop at other people’s parties and they set out with a goal to own their own location where ping pong can be played, and a good time can be had by all
After a very successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014, Eugene and Michael were able to put together more than $50,000, allowing them to open up their first brick and mortar ping pong paradise.
Now, the Jung brothers are looking to expand, and they need the help of the sharks to do it.
How does a ping pong social club work?
Eugene and Michael now have their own ping pong social club in its own building in Portland, Oregon, where ping pong enthusiasts can go to play the game and meet others who enjoy it as well.
At this Belmont street club, ping pong enthusiasts can rent a table and play to their heart’s desire for $16 per half hour. Seniors 65 years old and up can play at a discounted rate of $12 per 30 minutes.
There’s also a monthly membership where a person can sign up for $49 per month. What that gets them is free walk-in ping pong with a 1-hour maximum if there is a wait for tables. Otherwise, it is unlimited. Plus, there is a 10 percent discount on merchandise for members.
Annual membership runs $499, which gives yearly members a discount worth two months free and all the same perks.
Not just ping pong
And for those who work up an appetite during their ping pong playing, there is a menu with food and drinks available.
The food menu is a bit light since the focus here is on ping pong. Those who get hungry can choose from a variety of 12-inch pizzas or pick an appetizer to share or pick up an ice cream sandwich as a sweet treat.
The drink menu is a bit more ping pong themed, with the cocktails called pong-tails with many of them given great names like the Coin Toss or the PDX Lemonade. They also have a handful of classics like a Manhattan or an Old Fashioned.
Will the sharks be impressed by Pips & Bounce? We’ll just have to tune in and see.
Shark Tank airs Fridays at 8/7c on ABC.