Update: Both approved.
Boston could soon be awash in places to hit your putts without worrying about the weather: With one indoor simulated golf "course"already planned for West Broadway in South Boston, companies are now proposing two more: A similar full-swing facility across from City Hall, where the wax museum used to be, and a mini-golf range in a new space in the Seaport.
The Boston Licensing Board decides tomorrow whether to let the two facilities purchase the liquor licenses from defunct restaurants.
Five Iron Golf Boston, where the wax museum, and before that, a Planet Fitness, used to be on City Hall Plaza, has a deal to buy the liquor license from Teatro on Tremont Street so it can install a bar and 13 alcohol-ready "virtual golf stations" that simulate different holes for downtown duffers who want to get a round in without traveling to an actual outdoor golf course. Attorney Dennis Quilty said the bulk of the place's business would come from downtown business people, both to cement deals over and for office gatherings.
Servers will roam the place taking drink orders from the golf stations and then delivering them. "We have servers who roam around, we call them roamers, because they roam," a Five Iron exec told the board.
The Zoning Board of Appeal approved the wax-museum replacement last fall.
Puttshack on Pier 4 Boulevard in the Seaport, meanwhile, has a deal to buy the liquor license from the dead Gallows in the South End for its proposed "tech-infused mini golf," which won't have any windmills to try to get through, but which will have large video screens to blare any holes in one - and an automated scoring system so players no longer have to fiddle with those little scorecards and tiny pencils that you never know what to do with when it's your turn.
This would be the first Puttshack in New England; the chain, which started in Europe, has locations in Atlanta and suburban Chicago, with another about to open in Miami.
Its local attorney, Andrew Upton, said that the place would cause absolutely no impact on the surrounding area because there are 3,000 garage parking spaces with two blocks and while it will serve food, it won't do takeout, so there won't be any herds of delivery drivers swarming the entrance to pick up orders.