Hangar Club fits right in Denver’s Lowry neighborhood
It might be a snowy and rainy February weekend in Denver, but Hangar Club patrons are getting their golf on anyway.
The area’s newest indoor golf facility is in the 22,000-square-foot, airplane-hangar-like building smack in the middle of Lowry.
The 1940s building, 7600 E. First Place, was an armament and bombardier school for the U.S. Army Air Corps and U.S. Air Force on the former Lowry Air Force Base. Now it houses 10 “state-of-the-art” golf bays powered by Trackman technology surrounding a bar with plenty of gourmet-quality food and drinks. Owners claim to have the “largest hitting bays in Denver.”
“It’s almost like a country-club atmosphere, but obviously everyone is welcome,” said Co-Owner James Love.
Love played professional golf for 13 years and grew up in Canada “which lends itself to not a lot of playing outside,” he said.
“These things are all over up there, so I knew we had a need for something like this in Denver,” Love said. “Not that there aren’t others, but we wanted something more upscale and with a premier experience.”
For those not familiar, the Trackman technology allows a player to use a full golf swing with real clubs, and a real golf ball. When the ball smacks the flexible screen, a computer-generated trail shows the ball’s path and where it lands on famous courses like St. Andrews or Pebble Beach.
“Everyone can bring their own clubs,” Love said. “It’s not exactly like playing outside, but when the weather doesn’t lend itself to playing outside, especially in winter months, it’s a really good alternative.”
Robert Ehrlich played the club for the first time Thursday.
“This is the best one I’ve played in, hands down,” Ehrlich said. “I work from home, so I could see myself taking a break between conference calls and playing a couple holes easily.”
The University of Denver’s men’s golf team recently signed the Club as its official indoor practice facility.
Walk-ins can rent bays for “dynamic pricing” fees of $45 per hour during the day, $60 after 3 p.m. and $70 on weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday). Memberships are also available.
“That’s per bay, not per person, so you got four people in there and you can spit the time up however you want,” Love said.
Founding partner and restaurateur James Samara, formerly with the Del Frisco group, said the Club has “a locally driven menu” for a “full dining experience.”
“That full dining experience and golf are not mutually exclusive,” Samara said. “We wanted to have both options.”
The menu offers dishes like Tuna Poke ($17), Baked Brie ($15), Truffle Mush & Veg ($15) — which is “truffled mushrooms, grape, tomatoes, red peppers, onions, shredded mozzarella, drizzled with balsamic reduction” — Carnitas Quesadilla ($14), Charcuterie, salads and sandwiches such as the Signature Sandwich ($15) “smoked brisket, chicken, cotija cheese, romaine, pickled onion, tomatoes stopped with sweet heat sauce.”
“Our foods are meant to be paired with our cocktails and our wine list, and vice-versa,” Samara said. “We’ve found that’s been really popular for us in the neighborhood. People are coming down just to have dinner and hang out.”
Love said the owners got excited by the adaptive re-use possibilities when they saw the building.
“It was a warehouse when we bought it, so everything you see in here we built,” he said. “When we saw it for the first time, even though it was a warehouse, it was kind of ‘wow.’ It just had that wow factor with the beams and everything.”
The picked the moniker “Hangar Club” to “mesh into the neighborhood.”
“We were pretty calculated about wanting to be in this neighborhood,” Samara said. “Foot traffic has been awesome. Not only from the surrounding neighborhoods, but we’ve got businesses here like Wings Over the Rockies, the Lowry Beer Garden and Woodgrain Bagels – their staffs come in here and vice-versa.”