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Downtown to get simulated indoor golf; Seaport to get real indoor mini-golf

Update: Both approved.

Boston could soon be awash in places to hit your putts without worrying about the weather: With one indoor simulated golf "course" already planned for West Broadway in South Boston, companies are now proposing two more: A similar full-swing facility across from City Hall, where the wax museum used to be, and a mini-golf range in a new space in the Seaport.

The Boston Licensing Board decides tomorrow whether to let the two facilities purchase the liquor licenses from defunct restaurants.

Five Iron Golf Boston, where the wax museum, and before that, a Planet Fitness, used to be on City Hall Plaza, has a deal to buy the liquor license from Teatro on Tremont Street so it can install a bar and 13 alcohol-ready "virtual golf stations" that simulate different holes for downtown duffers who want to get a round in without traveling to an actual outdoor golf course. Attorney Dennis Quilty said the bulk of the place's business would come from downtown business people, both to cement deals over and for office gatherings.

Servers will roam the place taking drink orders from the golf stations and then delivering them. "We have servers who roam around, we call them roamers, because they roam," a Five Iron exec told the board.

The Zoning Board of Appeal approved the wax-museum replacement last fall.

Puttshack on Pier 4 Boulevard in the Seaport, meanwhile, has a deal to buy the liquor license from the dead Gallows in the South End for its proposed "tech-infused mini golf," which won't have any windmills to try to get through, but which will have large video screens to blare any holes in one - and an automated scoring system so players no longer have to fiddle with those little scorecards and tiny pencils that you never know what to do with when it's your turn.

This would be the first Puttshack in New England; the chain, which started in Europe, has locations in Atlanta and suburban Chicago, with another about to open in Miami.

Its local attorney, Andrew Upton, said that the place would cause absolutely no impact on the surrounding area because there are 3,000 garage parking spaces with two blocks and while it will serve food, it won't do takeout, so there won't be any herds of delivery drivers swarming the entrance to pick up orders.

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Comments

Gee, who could have predicted that that would fail so quickly? That was such a "not Boston" thing.

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I rarely saw anyone go in there. Plenty of people expecting crowds standing around, but didn't seem to have much interest. Had to wonder if it was displaced in its real purpose by the rise of NFTs?

The golf thing sounds like a ready-made wholesome office outing.

I still want my gym back. Harrumph.

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When the gym closed in favor of the wacked-museum I was sure something was sketchy. I gained about 10 lbs and decided I could never look at Leonardo DiCaprio in the same way again, his waxy "likeness" waaay too creepy.

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Did you not know that the London Wax Museum had a branch in Boston from April 1966 to the Summer of 1976 featuring the wax figures of Josephine Tussaud. It was located at 179 Tremont Street now the home of Emerson College's radio station. It was a must see for school kids in the Sixties because it had a replica of the wreck of PT109. Enjoy this link...
https://waxipedia.blogspot.com/2015/02/london-wax-museum-boston-opened-a...

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The original Boston Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum at Tremont and Boylston (where the Emerson radio station is now) lasted for a number of years. I believe from the mid 60s to early 70s. One night a vandal got in and hacked up the wax figures. Talk about creepy. It caused the demise of the museum and the dismembered figures were relocated to a nightclub on Commonwealth Ave. called Dummies (appropriately enough), which later morphed into the Paradise.

By the way, one time while the museum was in existence, members of a local mime troupe stood in the window for several days pretending to be dummies. Or maybe they weren't pretending. :-)

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Lol of course the seaport is getting a corny mini golf course. Dorkiest part of town

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not sure I would personally want to invest the cost of an at-free-market liquor license on a business limited to a hobby that's currently demographically disappearing, but if these guys want to do so, sounds great. less empty storefronts and more diversity in businesses.

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I was looking forward to the minigolf, but not with giant blaring screens. Sensory overload, you rang?

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will be called Dude World of Golf. Proper attire must be worn, with backwards baseball caps at the top of the list.

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