Your Next Night Out Comes With Margaritas and a Running Scoreboard

Same date night bar, same Italian, same debate about whether to order the burrata. Meanwhile, lunch with the girls has become a round of work updates, dating debriefs and promises to do something different next time. Don’t get us wrong, we love our regular spots, but sometimes the social calendar could use a shake-up.

Enter Kingpin Melbourne, a rather luxe $13 million adult playground on Collins Street where cocktails and dinner come with a welcome side of competition. Already brimming with genuinely fun themed activities (think: darts, bowling and karaoke), its two new golf games offer up fresh territory for date night, double dates and evenings with friends, whether you’ve got a decent swing or just wildly misplaced confidence.

Two New Ways to Play

For a night with friends or an action-packed double date, book one of the two new Interactive Mini Golf bays. Each fits up to eight players, combining real putting with digital targets, different game modes and live scoring. You’ll all play in one bay, with challenges ranging from smashing virtual bricks to racing donkeys by sinking putts. Choose your game and see who backs up their pre-match confidence.

If someone in your group spends their weekends on the fairway, HD Golf will likely get their attention. The simulator recreates famous courses with realistic graphics and precise ball tracking, with room for up to six players per booth. Experienced golfers can test their swing, while beginners can ease in with practice shots and challenges.

Make an Evening of It

The chef-led menu gives you plenty of reasons to stick around after your game, spanning small plates like gin-cured salmon and togarashi-battered king prawns through to hearty short-rib pappardelle, mushroom pizza with whipped Persian feta and coal-roasted chicken. The full-service bar is equally up for the occasion, with wines, beers and an extensive cocktail list that runs from classic margaritas and negronis to lychee rose martinis and smoked banana Manhattans.

Our suggestion? Make a whole tournament of it. Follow golf with bowling, darts or shuffleboard, then back it up with pool, batting cages or table tennis. Keep a running score and break for dinner and drinks before the final showdown. There’s karaoke, too, if anyone feels their talents have been poorly represented by the sporting events.

HD Golf and Interactive Mini Golf sessions run for 45 minutes, with prices from $23 per person. Find Kingpin Melbourne at Collins Arcade, 260 Collins Street.

Book your next night out at Kingpin Melbourne.

If this night out has you rethinking all of your social occasions, check out these unique Melbourne date ideas then pick up tickets to these top arts and cultural experiences in Melbourne.

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