Padel in New Orleans: Inside Louisiana's Only Courts
Padel in New Orleans: Inside Louisiana's Only Courts
Drew Brees put two indoor padel courts inside a Metairie entertainment venue. Two years on, they are still the only ones in the state.
Louisiana's First Padel Courts Are in a Bowling Alley
Search for padel in New Orleans and you get exactly one answer — and it isn't a padel club. It's a 50,000-square-foot entertainment venue on Veterans Memorial Boulevard in Metairie, stocked with duckpin bowling lanes, digital axe throwing, five pickleball courts and a full bar. Tucked into all of that: two glass-walled padel courts.
That's Pickle N Pins, and as of August 2026 it is still the only place to play padel in Louisiana. We track 358 active clubs across 40 states. Louisiana's entire footprint is one venue with two courts.
The courts opened with the building in October 2024. Padel writers at the time noted that Louisiana had become the 26th state with publicly accessible courts, and predicted these would be the first of many along the Gulf Coast. Nearly two years later they are still the only ones. Neither Mississippi nor Alabama has an active padel club at all. The nearest real cluster is Houston, roughly five and a half hours west.
The Drew Brees Connection
Brees co-founded Pickle N Pins with Darren Balsamo, an operator whose background is adventure parks and family entertainment centers rather than racket sports. This isn't a name rented for the marquee — Brees fronted the launch publicly and pitched the venue around leagues, tournaments and open play from the start.
Athlete backing has become one of the more reliable ways padel reaches a new US market. NHL veteran Henrik Zetterberg is behind Zmash Padel in Michigan, and the pattern repeats across the country — we covered it in Celebrities & Athletes Betting Big on US Padel.
What a Brees endorsement buys in southeast Louisiana is awareness, and in a market with no padel history whatsoever, awareness is the harder half of the problem.
What's Actually There — 2 Indoor Courts in a 50,000 Sq Ft Venue
Pickle N Pins
The padel courts sit indoors under 28-foot ceilings — comfortably above the roughly six-metre clearance the international rules call for, so lobs behave the way they should rather than clipping steel. That matters more than it sounds in a converted-retail build, where low ceilings are the usual compromise.
The location is straightforward Metairie: a commercial strip on Veterans Memorial, about fifteen minutes from the New Orleans CBD with parking that isn't a negotiation. The crowd is a mix you don't get at a dedicated club — pickleball regulars curious about the glass, groups who came for bowling and stayed for a match, and a small core of players who have made it their home court by default.
Address: 6930 Veterans Memorial Blvd, Metairie, LA 70003 | Phone: (504) 321-2159
Courts: 2 | Type: Indoor | Ceiling: 28ft | Rating: 3.7★
One note on that 3.7. It's the lowest Google rating of any club we've written up this month, and it's worth reading carefully rather than at face value. Those 130-odd reviews are rating a 50,000-square-foot entertainment complex — bar service, birthday parties, arcade, bowling, wait times on a Saturday night — not two padel courts. There is no padel-specific score to look up. Judge the courts on the courts.
The Entertainment-Venue Route into Padel
Padel usually arrives in a US city one of two ways: a dedicated club with six to eight courts, a pro shop and a ladder, or a couple of courts bolted onto a venue that already sells something else. Pickle N Pins is firmly the second kind, and the trade-offs are real in both directions.
In its favour: the barrier to a first game is close to zero. Rental rackets are $5, there's no membership gate, coaching and open-play sessions exist for people who have never held a padel racket, and the venue is open until 1am on Fridays and Saturdays. For a market where nobody has played before, that is exactly the right on-ramp — and if you're coming from the paddle side, what transfers from pickleball to padel is a shorter list than most people expect.
Against it: two courts is two courts. A dedicated eight-court club can run a league night and still leave space for walk-ups. Here, one busy evening books out the entire state's padel capacity. Court time also competes with a venue whose primary business is group entertainment, which shapes when the courts are realistically gettable.
Where Gulf Coast Padel Goes Next
The Gulf Coast is a barbell. Florida has 89 active clubs and Texas has 60. Between them: Louisiana's one, and nothing in Mississippi or Alabama. Metro Houston alone — Cube Padel Houston, TEMPO Padel & Pickleball Club, West43 Padel and others — has more courts than the four states east of it combined.
New Orleans has the ingredients that usually precede a build: a dense metro, a real tennis and racket-sports base, and a climate that pushes play indoors in summer anyway. What it hasn't had is a second operator willing to go first. For the wider picture, see our Southeast growth update and the 2026 state of US padel.
How to Play There
- Booking: through PlayByPoint, linked from the venue's own booking page at picklenpins.com. Check current availability on the Pickle N Pins page before you drive out.
- Rates: $30 per court per hour off-peak (Monday through 5pm Friday), $40 peak (5pm Friday through Sunday). Racket rental is $5; a three-pack of balls is $10.
- Membership: from $99/month, which halves court rental — worth the math if you're playing more than about three hours a week.
- Hours: Sunday–Thursday 9am–10pm, Friday–Saturday 9am–1am.
- Book ahead. With two courts serving an entire state, weekend evenings and Saints game days go first.
- Beginners: rental rackets, lessons and clinics, and open-play sessions are all available, so you don't need gear or a foursome to start. Once you're past the rental stage, Racket Central is where we'd send you for a first racket.
Frequently Asked Questions
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