As another anniversary passed for Crush It! Sports Lounge, Mike Speets is still looking to the future.
Despite hitting the six-year mark in Grapevine, the business owner hopes to continue evolving the entertainment spot that opened when the world was shut down.
The background
Speets was working for a Fortune 500 company in the Dallas-Fort Worth area when he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. His dad left a corporate job to start his own business in the early 2000s, and almost 20 years later, he did as well. Speets decided to combine his love of sports, golf and food with Crush It! Sports Lounge. He was two weeks away from a grand opening in a former El Fenix restaurant spot when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. When the state of Texas announced restaurants could open at 25% capacity, Speets finally opened May 1, 2020.
“I think I had one sale that day, and it was a to-go order,” he said. “It was just me, a cook and a server. I was running out of my reserve cash, but I was probably three to five months away from shutting down. Slowly but surely, the losses started to narrow and I was able to open up to bigger groups after the vaccine came out.”
He jokes that his business had the world’s longest soft opening.
Speets recalls serving as the bartender and dishwasher in the early stages to keep it afloat.
“I just kind of have a fighter story, right?” he said. “I believed in my product. I just got to keep going and keep my head down. I became the most unbelievable optimist in the world because otherwise I couldn’t sleep. That’s when I really leaned into faith, honestly. I’m Catholic; I went to church, I was like, ‘God, like, help me out here.’ It was just part of a bigger plan, like you’re being tested. Everything you learned in business school at Rice [University], from sales to strategy to operations … everything is being put to the ultimate test. If you can survive this, you’re going to be so much better because now you can survive anything. Now, I have 25 employees; I have a general manager now. I have a staff where I can finally be more the owner.”
The details
He said word of mouth helped grow the business, which offers various sports simulators with golf, football, soccer, hockey, cricket, rugby, baseball, lacrosse and more. In March 2023, the Grapevine City Council approved a conditional-use permit for an expansion. Speets added 3,800 square feet, which included duckpin bowling, arcade games, foosball and an air hockey table.
“I had to double down after the scary start,” he said, citing the requests for large parties.
Speets has continued to expand the offerings at Crush It! Sports Lounge. Duckpin bowling was added in 2024, and a pickleball simulator was added Feb. 6, according to previous reporting.
One of the pillars of the success over six years has been customer service, Speets said. He said he believes treating customers well has contributed to the success, with a 4.7 rating on Google.
The outlook
Speets said he is looking ahead to what he needs to do to keep Crush It! evolving with growing competition in the activity-and-eating niche. He plans to upgrade the bar soon to make it stand out more, calling it Crush It! 3.0. He also wants to keep the menu fresh and continue to draw corporate events. He said some of the buffets that are offered include a prime rib carving station.
Speets said one of the lessons he learned from washing dishes helped him craft the menu. He noticed some sauces were back in the kitchen without being used, while others came back empty. He also noticed some drinks were sent back to the bartender, so he looked into why that happened.
“I constantly like getting 1% better each day; that is my motto,” Speets said. “If you can do 1% better every day, if you do that for a year, you’re exponentially better.”
He recently added two dart games, which are next to the duckpin bowling lanes. Speets said there may be new simulator options coming too.
Speets estimates Crush It! Sports Lounge has between 40,000 and 50,000 visitors a year.
“Now, it’s about perfecting this,” he said. “How do I get better and better so that people keep coming back is the challenge for me. I don’t want to be in the situation where I’m trying to play catch-up. I want to keep up. You kind of have to change things to give people reasons to come back and experience new things.”
