Westside Bunker: 7K Sq Ft Sim Facility

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You can tell me the indoor golf market is growing. You can show me the Fortune Business Insights report that says the global simulator market hit $1.9 billion in 2025 and is on track for $4.7 billion by 2034. You can wave the National Golf Foundation numbers in my face — 8.1 million simulator users, up from 3.6 million five years ago.

I’d rather show you Westside Bunker.

The Cincinnati indoor golf spot opened its first location in September 2025. That location was 1,500 square feet. One thousand five hundred. That’s the size of a two-bedroom apartment. Nine months later, they’ve moved into a 7,000-square-foot facility a quarter-mile down Glenway Avenue. Six simulator bays. A sports lounge. Two Golden Tee arcades. A recovery area with saunas and cryotherapy.

That’s not a market that’s “growing.” That’s a market that’s on fire.

The Numbers Tell the Story

Owner David Berding didn’t open Westside Bunker because he read the market projections. He opened it because he’s a lifelong westsider who wanted a place to hit balls indoors during Ohio’s six-month winter. The demand showed up faster than he could build for it.

“We expanded because the demand was there,” Berding told WKRC. “Our original location gave us a great start, but we quickly realized the west side wanted a bigger, better indoor golf experience.”

The expansion from 1,500 to 7,000 square feet in under a year is the kind of growth rate that only makes sense when the market is undersupplied and the customers are lined up. Cincinnati has real winters. It has golfers who don’t want to put their clubs away for half the year. And until Westside Bunker showed up, nobody had built the indoor solution for the west side of the city.

That’s the pattern we’re seeing everywhere — not just in the big franchise expansions like Five Iron or Back Nine, but at the independent, local level. A guy with a passion for golf and a business plan opens a small sim spot. It works. He has to expand before the first lease is even up.

The ProTee VX Choice

The technology choice here is worth noting. Westside Bunker runs ProTee VX launch monitors, not Trackman or Full Swing. That’s interesting because ProTee has been quietly building a reputation in the commercial space as the best value-for-accuracy option in the mid-tier market.

ProTee VX is a dual-camera photometric system that sits in a floor enclosure in front of the hitting area. It captures both club and ball data using high-speed cameras, and it’s accurate enough for serious practice while being priced well below the $20,000-per-unit commercial options. For a 6-bay facility that needs to balance capital costs with hourly revenue, it’s a smart choice. Read our full ProTee VX review for the specs and accuracy data.

“I did a lot of research before opening Westside Bunker because I wanted to separate us from other indoor golf facilities,” Berding said. “We built bigger bays so golfers feel comfortable, and we chose ProTee VX launch monitors because they provide professional-level accuracy.”

The Recovery Concept

The most intriguing part of the new facility is the recovery area. Saunas and cryotherapy alongside simulator bays is not something you see at most indoor golf spots. It’s a smart add-on, especially in a market where winters are brutal and people are looking for wellness amenities year-round.

Westside Bunker calls it “Play. Recover. Repeat.” It’s the kind of concept that makes sense when you think about who the indoor golf customer actually is: someone with money who cares about their health and has a few hours to kill. That person is also the target customer for saunas and cryotherapy. Bundling them together increases time spent on-site, per-visit revenue, and membership stickiness.

Berding — an Oak Hills High School graduate — understands his market. The west side of Cincinnati is not the downtown core. It’s suburban, family-oriented, and underserved for premium entertainment options. Westside Bunker is filling a gap that existed because nobody else thought to put six simulator bays next to a sauna.

The Smaller Story About a Bigger Trend

The headline here is one local business expanding — and part of a much bigger sim facility boom happening across the country. The real story is what it says about the indoor golf market at ground level.

The franchise expansions are easy to track. Five Iron, Back Nine, X-Golf, Golf Envy — they all have PR teams, press releases, and investor presentations. You can watch them grow from a spreadsheet. But the independent operators — the guys who open a single location because they love golf and see an opportunity in their neighborhood — those are the canaries in the coal mine.

When independents are expanding within a year of opening, the market is not just growing. It’s pulling demand faster than supply can catch up. That’s a bull market. If you’ve been sitting on the fence about opening an indoor sim facility in your town, or building one in your garage, the Westside Bunker story is the data point you need.

The new location opened this week. Six bays. Saunas. Golden Tee. A sports lounge. And a guy who proved that if you build it in a place where people actually want it, they’ll show up faster than you can find a bigger building.

Thinking about building your own setup? Start with the DIY build guide — you don’t need 7,000 square feet to get started.