Ace Pickleball Club comes to Folsom

Pickleball has been a craze for more than five years now, and Folsom will add 15 indoor courts to the few it already has at the Folsom Sports Complex with the opening of Ace Pickleball Club on Saturday. Ace Pickleball Club is a national franchise. Its first location in California, owned by Mukti and Jyoti Patel of Elk Grove, opens Saturday, Oct. 25, at 9522 Greenback Lane in Folsom behind Carl's Jr. and Starbucks between Greenback Lane and Madison Avenue. With the pickleball craze in full bloom, this should be a hot spot near the outskirts of town, as it sits close to Folsom's northwestern border. Mukti Patel looked long and hard until he found the right location. "I looked at 20-plus locations all over Sacramento, and Folsom is great because not only of Folsom itself, but you've got Orangevale, Granite Bay, East Roseville, Fair Oaks, Citrus Heights and Carmichael to pull from," Patel said. Beyond that, Patel had to have the right-sized building and parking lot and, of course, all for the right price. Ace Pickleball features 15 regulation-size courts, 60 feet long by 32 feet wide, that have an outdoor surface, only it's located indoors. "Everything we do here is all-inclusive, meaning members pay $109 a month and there's no extra charge for instructional clinics or tournaments," Patel said. "The first month is free, because we want people to know who we are, where we are, what we do, etc. We're almost full of sign-ups. We don't want people to have to wait a long time to play, so we have to limit the membership. There will be some wait at times, but not an unreasonable amount of time. We will have a waiting list to join which through natural attrition will continue to keep us filled up." A member is allowed one free guest pass a month where they can invite a non-member into play. Ace Pickleball will offer instructional classes for beginners, intermediate and advanced players. Members also have access to a ball return, which shoots balls at the direction, speed and height members like where they can play by themselves and work on particular strategic shots. Ace Pickleball also offers a starter series of eight sessions of five unique topics to help train intermediate players. "It's where they can get comfortable with certain strategies and game dynamics, like dinking, lobs and things like that," Patel said. The club also features a smaller "dink" court for training. "Dinking in the sport of pickleball is a critical component and how a lot of points are won," Patel said. "We have a dink court that people can warm up on and practice dinking with other people. A lot of times in pickleball a shot is not put away with one shot, it's a combination of shots and learning how to do that is very important and the dink court allows players to practice that." The club features a room to have a birthday party, as well as a room for players to stretch before and after playing. The room will feature stretch bands, jump ropes and other equipment. Locker rooms are on site. "I'm very into hospitality," Patel said. "We will look after our members with a staff of at least two to three people at all times. We want them to enjoy their experience." Ace Pickleball will be open to members from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. The Patels are from Zambia. Mukti, 63, came to the United States as a 14-year-old to pursue an education. He spent 32 years as a certified public accountant before retiring in 2022, when spending time with his two grandchildren became top priority. He picked up pickleball in 2023. "A friend invited me to play pickleball and I found it interesting," Patel said. "I loved it and started playing it everywhere that I could. That's when I thought about wanting an indoor facility to play in the wintertime. I joined Ace Pickleball and signed the franchise agreement in early 2024, found the site in late 2024, signed the lease in early 2025 and now we open on Saturday."