Alma Padel

Alma Padel opened in Glenview, about 20 miles north of the Loop, and describes itself as a Mediterranean-inspired sanctuary for padel, connection and leisure. That is marketing, but the list behind it is not: five competition-level courts, a golf simulator, saunas, a gym, a pro shop, table tennis, social lounges, event spaces, and food and drink served under what the club calls the Alma tree. There are mahjong and backgammon nights for people who came for the room rather than the sport. The club states plainly that it is open to members and non-members and that membership is optional, which in a metro where two clubs run guest policies is worth reading twice.

The price is the thing to understand before you book, because Alma quotes it per player. A non-member pays $30 an hour per person. Four adults on a court for an hour is therefore $120, and that is the number to compare with the rest of the city — where Padel Clube charges $100 for the same court-hour, Club Pickle $100, and Proximo the equivalent of $100 at regular hours. Read the headline figures alone and Alma looks like the cheapest padel in Chicago at $30 against their $100 and $150. Do the multiplication and it is among the dearest. Members pay $20 a head, which brings a court-hour to $80 and is where the membership maths starts to work.

The per-player unit also changes what a big group costs, in a direction most organizers do not expect. At a per-court club, twenty players across five courts costs whatever five courts cost. Here it costs twenty times $30 — $600 an hour — regardless of how many courts you take. The flip side is real and useful: twelve players on those same five courts pay $360 rather than a five-court rental, so Alma rewards a group that wants space and charges a premium for one that fills every court. If you are running something large, price both models before you pick a venue; if you are eight people who want room to rotate, this is the one club in the metro whose pricing is on your side.

The court count needs both numbers. Alma's own homepage and about page both say five — "five world-class courts" on one, "five competition level courts" on the other, and a January 2026 capture of the site says the same — while April 2025 opening coverage said four. The likeliest explanation is a court added after opening; either way, five is what the club currently publishes about itself and this page is built on it. Everything below, group sizes included, follows from five.

One claim on the directories is not Alma's own. Several list the club as climate-controlled. Alma's own description of the Glenview room is "its open-air feel, high ceilings, and expansive windows", and its materials elsewhere describe doors that open to the outside. Those are attractive sentences in June and a different proposition in January, and the club publishes nothing about heating or air conditioning. Ask when you book rather than trusting the label.

Almost everything here runs by level, and that is a genuine step before your first game: the club states that most ways to play require each player to have a rating, and it sells a rating session to get one. Open play, match play, round robins, leagues, the academy and the junior clinics all sit behind it. If you are bringing four friends who have never played, book an Intro Clinic or a rating session first — turning up expecting to join an open play without ratings is the one way to waste the trip.

Alma publishes no opening hours anywhere on its own site. Real-time availability lives in its PlayByPoint tenant and its app, which is also where tournaments and kids' programming are listed. A reservation runs up to an hour and a half, non-members book seven days ahead, and a cancellation made 24 hours out is refunded in full.

Five courts seat twenty players in a round. Twenty-six is the sensible ceiling, with six people resting each round — past that you are running a queue rather than a session.

An hour-and-a-half reservation leaves about 80 minutes of actual play once warm-up and changeovers are out, which is six rounds to 32 points. A full Americano rotation at twenty players needs nineteen rounds, so plan a slice of one rather than the whole thing, or run a Mexicano and let the re-pairing do the work.

Budget by headcount, not by courts. Twenty non-members for an hour is $600 whatever the court count; twelve is $360. If the group is smaller than the club, this pricing is in your favour.

Check ratings before the day. Most of the club's play formats require every player to have one, and a rating session is a separate booking.