A group lesson in session at Even House
Angie Silvy
Lifestyle interest clubs, where folks click over a shared obsession—whether it’s ripping forehand winners, bagging ducks, or throttling Harleys down a winding road—have long provided a social anchor outside of home and work.
For those wired to take dead aim at pin flags, golf clubs have long filled that role. But country clubs aren’t for everyone, and public tracks skimp on the amenities that make off-course socializing stick. Even House, the brainchild of Orange County husband-and-wife duo Adam and Laily Fogel, has fashioned a gap wedge of a tribe-finding concept they feel casts a wider net.
Originally east coasters, Adam got his start as an investment banker at JP Morgan in New York before getting the entrepreneurial itch and launching a specialty cycling supply shop/ecommerce play that hit $10 million in sales before he exited. Laily spent a decade running a digital marketing agency for fashion, beauty and hospitality clients.
Their 14,000 square foot membership club creates a “third place” around an indoor golf experience while layering in a farm-to-table café and flex space for co-working and also host community-driven programming, everything from pilates classes to album release parties.
Today’s indoor-golf retail landscape is dominated by two formats. There are the eatertainment-style venues like Top Golf, Tiger Woods’ PopStroke and emerging players such as Puttshack or Puttery that offer a quick-hit date-night or corporate experiences. Then there are sim-bar chains a la Five Iron Golf or X-Golf, effectively activity driven sports bars—think the golf version of a bowling alley, that tend to revolve around hourly simulator bay rentals. There are league nights and ‘memberships’ but those function more like loyalty programs than true community-building endeavors.
Even House, only in its third month of operation, is betting people will want to linger, connect, and treat it as a go-to spot, come for the golf but stay for the community aspects. The distinction, Fogel says, lies in the approach:
“From a branding perspective we are pushing very much away from the indoor golf, go rent a simulator by the hour type place, and are very much in the direction of this is a lifestyle space, we are building community and there are a lot of things you can do here outside golf,” he explained.
A peek at Even house’s non-golf space and patio
Angie Silvy
While about a third of the square footage at Even House is dedicated to golf—simulator bays and a putting course—the vast majority of the space is given over to food and beverage, wellness, working and socializing.
Currently, memberships are the primary revenue driver, though the restaurant—set to soon roll out bistro style dinner service with items like steak and oysters—is expected to become a meaningful profit center. Access to Even House starts at $180 a month for social membership, bumps to $250 with daily simulator time, and tops out at $450 with lessons, priority booking, and perks like a free drink on each visit.
For now, the Orange County flagship in Tustin is a standalone, but Fogel has his eyes on a wider fairway. Dallas, San Diego, L.A., and Scottsdale sit high on the expansion shortlist, with two more clubs projected to come online by year-end 2026. Once a handful of corporate-owned locations are in the bag, franchising could accelerate Even House’s growth nationwide.
“We very much see it as a social space, community first, where people are using it as a third place because they’ll come in for meetings, in the evenings to socialize, they’re receiving a lot more than they would in a typical indoor golf setting,” Fogel said.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikedojc/2025/09/09/even-house-turns-indoor-golf-into-a-community-social-hub/
