By Jonathan Morales

July 25, 2024

It was a weeknight in the Seattle suburbs, and the bar was still packed.

On a work trip for their small business and looking to blow off steam, Jennifer Robinson and her husband, Brandon, had wandered into a “mini golf bar” – and were blown away.

“They had all these really unique games,” Robinson said. “We were like, ‘This is the coolest place we’ve ever been.’ There wasn’t something like it in Sacramento.”

There is now.

Jennifer and Brandon opened Tipsy Putt in Sacramento’s Downtown Commons (DoCo) in 2019. Five years later, they’ve grown to five locations and have their sights set on expanding even further.

They got major help, in many ways quite directly, from Jennifer Robinson’s two Sacramento State degrees.

“I loved Sac State. I loved it so much,” said Robinson, who earned a bachelor’s in Marketing in 2011 and her MBA in 2019. “So much of what I learned is what I apply in my day-to-day life.”

Her entrepreneurial, “can-do” attitude traces back to her childhood growing up in El Dorado Hills. Her father was a general contractor, and she spent her summers working with him.

“My childhood wasn’t perfect, but my dad was always like, ‘It doesn’t matter, you can make anything happen. Here’s a hammer, here’s some elbow grease,’ ” Robinson said. “The whole idea of just bootstrapping something or figuring it out, I think, came from my childhood.”

Though she and her younger sister spent most of their free time outdoors, it was an indoor activity that put her on her career path. She was fascinated by television commercials – Who makes them? How? Who decides which ones go on TV? – and decided to study marketing.

Knowing she would have to work full time to put herself through college, Sac State was “what had always made sense.”

“I kind of had the inkling to maybe leave a little bit, like maybe Chico or San Francisco,” Robinson said. “But the business program at Sac State was really the most recommended and the one that appealed to me the most.”

She transferred to Sac State from Sierra College in 2008, balancing her studies with her job as a cell phone sales representative. She had “incredible professors,” she said, and was active in the American Marketing Association.

About the same time, she met Brandon. She had begun a job as a salesperson for a medical esthetics company, a field Brandon was in as well, and they eventually launched their own company. Robinson took advantage of class assignments, such as one where she had to research how to expand into a new market, to grow the business.

"I used Sac State as a hub of really smart minds that would work on problems that would help my business,” Robinson said.

It wouldn’t be the last time she did so.

After earning her undergraduate degree, she and Brandon continued to grow the business, expanding to multiple states. That’s what brought them to Kirkland, Washington, that fateful April evening in 2017 when they found the mini golf bar. They were enamored by the concept and burned out from all of their business travel. Looking for something that would help them place roots in Sacramento, they asked the owners if any partnership opportunities were available.

The response? A flat-out no.

“We were like, ‘Well, we're gonna do this anyway. I think this makes sense to do,’ ” Robinson said. “Someone tells me no, and I'm, like, ‘I think I can though, I'm gonna try anyways.’ ”

With help from her brother-in-law, who was moving to Sacramento and had experience in the restaurant and bar industry, Robinson and her husband exited the medical esthetics field and set to work launching a mini golf bar.

Sac State again played a key role in Robinson’s business success. In 2017, she returned to the University to earn her MBA, and, just as she did with her undergraduate program, she used her time on campus to develop a business plan for a mini golf bar.

“We made the business plan and then sent it to the Washington company and said, ‘We're gonna make this with or without you. It'd be great if we could have some sort of partnership,’ ” she said. “Then they said, ‘OK, if you can be here tomorrow at 5 p.m., we'll grab a beer.’ ”

An agreement was indeed worked out, and the Robinsons opened Flatstick Pub – the venue’s original name – in DoCo in 2019. Jennifer Robinson serves as the company’s chief marketing officer.

Now the sole owners of the business, they survived closure during the COVID-19 pandemic and came out stronger on the other side, opening four additional Northern California Tipsy Putt locations. They’re working to open in Reno and Los Angeles and, eventually, outside California and Nevada, with the goal of eventually getting to about 30 locations.

"I love Sac State, and I love that we still live here, so we need to be involved any time that we're asked to be involved. It's really important to me to not just be involved with the network that I currently have, but also to meet some of the incoming students and show them that Sacramento is a really great place to start a business."

-- Jennifer Robinson, Sac State alum, Tipsy Putt co-founder and member of the College of Business Advisory Council

From day one they have given back to the community. Every Sunday, $1 from every beer sold and game of golf played is given to a local charity. Since 2019, they have raised over $100,000.

“We really wanted something that was Sacramento-based, that kept us in Sacramento, but also that was not only a community gathering place, but, like, (a) rising tide lifts all boats,” Robinson said. “It was really important to me that we focused on some way to give back.”

Now, five years after opening, Robinson is balancing her longtime business role with being a parent. With two daughters, one 3 years old, the other 18 months, Robinson said she is learning how to set boundaries on her work life so she can spend as much time as possible with her kids. They have breakfast together every morning, go for frequent walks, and have dinner as a family every night, she said.

It’s one of the perks Robinson sought when they opened Tipsy Putt. Another one? Being close to her alma mater. She recently joined the College of Business’ Advisory Council, has been a panelist at Carlsen Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship events, and hosted this year’s Sac State Alumni Mixer.

"I love Sac State, and I love that we still live here, so we need to be involved any time that we're asked to be involved,” she said. “It's really important to me to not just be involved with the network that I currently have, but also to meet some of the incoming students and show them that Sacramento is a really great place to start a business.

“I think we get overlooked a lot and that kind of leads to how scrappy we get to be, because people take us for granted. We're fine with that because we're just doing our thing and doing very well at it.”