Craig Millsap, a 1990 Rainier High School graduate, fell into co-ownership of 23 Kitchens in Lacey by accident, both literally and figuratively.
He was snowmobiling with friends near Mount Rainier in 2020 when he cut open his shin in an accident, and he required stitches. After numerous calls to walk-in clinics, Millsap couldn’t find anyone to stitch him up, until he called a mutual friend with a dental office in Lacey.
The friend — Joshua Carpenter — stitched his wound for no charge, and the two hit it off. They eventually snowmobiled together twice a week, and on a random drive, Carpenter asked Millsap if he had ever heard of pickleball.
By that point, Millsap was already in love with the sport. Carpenter told him about a place in Wichita, Kansas, called Chicken N Pickle that offered recreational sports and food, and he pitched a wild idea.
“Out of the blue, he’s like, ‘What would you say we brought this to Marvin Road [in Lacey]?’ Three years later, we ended up with building permits,” Millsap said.
Together, Millsap and Carpenter opened 23 Kitchens, a 1.25-acre indoor/outdoor entertainment complex that features a combined 11 indoor and outdoor pickleball courts, 23 kitchens — which includes a 3,000-square-foot restaurant with a rooftop bar and open-air patio — and more. The venture was a bit different from the other stops throughout Millsap’s professional career and was more of an opportunity to satisfy his recreational hobbies.
“It was just the vibe. It was a cool community vibe. Pickleball has 7-year-olds and 85-year-olds. It’s really welcoming, and anybody can do it,” Millsap said.
Millsap, a former basketball and football player at RHS, went to Eastern Washington University to earn a math degree. He was a high school math teacher in Spokane out of college before opening his own concrete construction company called C&S Construction NW Inc. in 1997, and he still runs it along with 23 Kitchens. Millsap picked up pickleball in the 1980s as a physical education student at RHS and has played competitively around the world, including in Hawaii, Costa Rica and Mexico. He was part of a team that won gold in the Washington State Senior Games in 2022 in the 50- to 54-year-old age bracket.
Millsap often gives back to his hometown of Rainier with pickleball clinics at Rainier Middle School and RHS physical education classes featuring pickleball professionals.
“We’ve donated 85 paddles, and we do instruction out there. They have a whole chapter of pickleball, and we had almost 130 kids a day,” Millsap said. “It’s pretty awesome.”
23 Kitchens is an opportunity for Millsap to share his belief that pickleball is a life sport and that anyone can enjoy it. He also enjoys representing Rainier in as many ways as he can, whether it’s playing pickleball around the globe or in his various business ventures.
“It’s really fun to say, ‘I’m from Rainier.’ A lot of people didn’t know where that was for a very long time, and now they do,” Millsap said. “I learned a really good work ethic out there. I worked at a chicken farm all through high school, and I grew up splitting wood every weekend for anybody that wanted it. That’s who I am. I’m just a small-town dude that took a shot here. I owe that place a lot.”
Millsap and Carpenter are still learning to navigate some of the finer details of operating 23 Kitchens, particularly the restaurant side of the business. But Millsap believes they’re well on their way in making 23 Kitchens an extension of customers’ backyards at home.
“The facility has taken off. The restaurant is still a mystery to us. Josh still has his practice, and I’m still running construction,” he said. “It was a new challenge. I wanted to do something a little more community based. This is the first one of its kind on the West Coast.”
23 Kitchens is located at 2440 Marvin Road NE in Lacey. The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and on Sundays and from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Pickleball is open to the public daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
