PICKLEBALL COMPLEX COMES TO NEW ENGLAND

Valeria Vazquez, The Patriot Ledger 

DeMeritt and her business partner are opening Pickles NE, an indoor pickleball complex.

Lisa DeMeritt bought pickleball paddles a year ago, but she didn't actually use them until last summer rolled around and friends invited her to get out of the house and play. After that warm July day, she was hooked. "I literally fell in love with the game," DeMeritt said. "I was like, 'Oh my god, I can do this. I like this, this is fun.” That day, she not only fell in love with pickleball, but she also met her soon-to-be business partner Wanda Melampy.  DeMeritt started regularly going to the Tarklin Recreation Center in Duxbury,
where tennis courts were converted into pickleball courts. She would go during drop-in times and started meeting and playing with people she had never met. Soon, DeMeritt found a community in the women who frequented the courts.

Around the same time, DeMeritt's husband visited family in Kansas and told them about his wife's new hobby. A family member asked if they'd heard of Chicken N' Pickle, a chain of outdoor and indoor pickleball complexes, which inspired DeMeritt to think about combining her new passion with a possible business opportunity. DeMeritt realized there was nothing like the southwestern-based Chicken N' Pickle chain in New England, and wanted to do something about it. "I was like, 'Why don't we do that here?'" DeMeritt said. "I was finding that there's only a couple places to play outdoors and there's tons of people there all the time. You could never just take a court yourself. We noticed there was definitely a demand for more outdoor courts, but also more indoor courts for a rainy day, a super hot or humid day, a winter day.” 

That realization led to DeMeritt and Melampy founding Pickles NE, a 25,000-square-foot pickleball complex in Hanover. The facility is expected to open this spring at 357 Columbia Road in Hanover, and will include six tournament-sized courts, two dinking kitchens, an upper mezzanine players’ lounge, and an indoor and outdoor "refreshment garden." Four outdoor courts are also planned for the spring.

Pickleball was invented in 1965 and has grown exponentially in popularity, especially since the start of the pandemic. "It is currently coined the fastest growing sport in the world. People are jumping into it at all levels." DeMeritt said. "With COVID, it's a sport that people could get out there and play. There you can very easily stay socially distant, wear masks and stay six feet
apart while you're whacking the ball back and forth at each other. "

DeMeritt jumped into pickleball at a time, she says, when she was looking for something to be passionate about. After selling residential real estate in the South Shore for the last 18 years and raising her now adult children, DeMeritt wanted to look forward to her next passion project. "I had a lot of free time, and my husband was like 'Lisa, what are you passionate about?' And for a longtime, I said 'I don't know, nothing,'" DeMeritt said. "But then this summer, I said 'Dustin, I'm passionate about pickleball,' and he's like, 'Really, that's what you're passionate about?' I said 'Yes I'm passionate about pickleball.' So, here we are."

DeMeritt and Melampy hope to eventually hosts tournaments at Pickles NE for USA Pickleball, the World Pickleball Federation or the International Federation of Pickleball. Every future success and endeavor of Pickles NE, DeMeritt stressed, would be because of Melampy's support in DeMeritt's vision from the very beginning.  "I give her credit for pushing me to make this happen. She's like, 'Lisa, your idea is brilliant. Keep going, keep fighting,'" DeMeritt said. "We make a really good team because of our personalities: I'm the one who's out there yapping all the time and doing all that, but she's the one doing a lot behind the scenes work to take care of what needs to be done. It's not always the glamorous part, but she's getting things done."  

About Pickles NE, LLC

Pickles was founded by Lisa DeMeritt and Wanda Melampy, two women with a passion for the sport of pickleball.  After being introduced to the sport and observing its huge following, they identified a need for additional local outdoor courts and an even bigger demand for indoor courts exclusively for the sport of pickleball.  Pickles will include a recreational facility providing indoor and outdoor pickleball courts, food service from various food trucks, a café area, and a small retail shop carrying the latest pickleball gear.

 Pickles will be located at 357 Columbia Road in Hanover, MA.