SUNNYVALE — The miniature golf venue Tipsy Putt abruptly shut its downtown Sunnyvale location at Cityline Sunnyvale in the wake of a dispute and eviction battle with its landlord, a closure that jettisoned employees with minimal notice.
Two employees said the 50-person staff was given same-day or day-before notice this past weekend that Tipsy Putt would cease operations at its 150 West McKinley Ave. location.
“People got no official notice that they were being terminated, even though the owners knew 10 days ahead of time that the place was closing,” said John Dempsey, a Tipsy Putt Sunnyvale manager at the time of the shutdown. “People are very upset that they are losing this financial stability. People suddenly found out their ability to put food on the table was disappearing.”
Tipsy Putt opened at Cityline Sunnyvale, a mixed-use neighborhood, around November 2023.
An estimated 50 people lost their jobs as a result of the closure, according to a Tipsy Golf supervisor.
“Same-day notice is just so unfair to people,” said Joeseph Villanueva, also a manager at the site. “The customers were in shock and disbelief when they found out we were closing. Customers literally thought there was no way it would be closing.”
Dempsey doesn’t see any reason for the lack of two weeks’ notice of the closure.
“There was ample time to notify the employees, but the owner told us he didn’t want to say anything because he wanted to protect guest experiences,” Dempsey said. “My boss told me that he knew about this almost two weeks before we closed. But he said he didn’t have the heart to tell anybody about it.”
Employees found out about the pending shutdown, according to Dempsey, when a website management firm that was tasked with posting the Sunnyvale closure notice on the website blundered and put the information online before it was supposed to be made public.
“It leaked online unintentionally, but they fumbled it and put out the information early,” Dempsey said. “Everyone started to panic. We tried to call the owner and top management, but no one ever responded to us. The owner finally showed up this past weekend. All he had were empty words for us. A lot of workers had hard words for him.”
Tipsy Putt cited multiple factors for the shutdown.
“We closed in Sunnyvale due to economic challenges and unresolved differences with the landlord,” said Jennifer Robinson, a spokesperson for Sacramento-based Tipsy Putt. “We made the very difficult decision to close the Sunnyvale location.”
The company also operates miniature golf, dining, and drinking establishments in Emeryville, Monterey, Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe.
“We are working to place as many of our team members as possible in one of our other locations,” Robinson said.
Prior to the venue’s closure, Tipsy Putt was tangled in a long-running rental dispute with a real estate entity that is the principal developer and owner of Cityline Sunnyvale, according to documents on file in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
Tipsy Putt leased about 12,000 square feet at the corner of West McKinley and Aries Way, court papers and real estate records show.
“The defendant (Tipsy Putt) has breached the lease because it has failed to pay minimum annual rent, percentage rent, additional rent, and its share of taxes, utilities, and operating costs,” STC Venture, the entity that owns the property it rented to Tipsy Putt, stated in a lawsuit it filed against the company.
STC Venture had been attempting to evict Tipsy Putt since at least May 2025, when it filed a 10-day notice that demanded Tipsy Putt pay its rents and other obligations in full or exit the premises.
In an answer to the lawsuit the landlord filed, Tipsy Putt denied numerous allegations that STC Venture had claimed in the lawsuit.
“Defendant (Tipsy Putt) alleges that plaintiff (STC Venture) materially breached the lease or failed to perform essential obligations,” Tipsy Putt stated in its answer to the lawsuit.
Tipsy Putt blamed STC Venture for construction delays, failing to maintain the premises properly, failing to maintain common areas, and improperly calculating operating expenses, court papers claim.