Meet Rick Landsman. He was a cop for 35 years in Baltimore County, Md., the third most populous county in the state. Rick is the CEO of the Guntry Club in Owings Mills, Md. … full-service café, 34 indoor shooting ranges, a simulator, a cigar bar, and gun experts galore.
Those are some highlights. And, as you may have heard, Rick and his partners is bringing Guntry to Ohio County, West Virginia.
Construction of the $13 million, 47,00-square-foot structure continues this week at The Highlands in the large lot directly in front of the Hampton Inn & Suites along Bob Wise Drive. Guntry’s address will be 45 Caliber Drive when completed in eight or nine months, and the club will employ as many as 35 full- and part-time employees.
“We’re excited to see how far along the construction is already,” Landsman said. “We’re shooting for a Fall opening so we can start working with our new members here and with everyone who visits. It’s going to be very exciting for everyone at Guntry because this is our first expansion.
“But the first thing I liked is that every major chain is here at The Highlands, and that’s a really big deal when it comes to opening a business like ours. Plus, we’ll have the folks from western Pennsylvania just up the interstate, and the folks in East Ohio on the other side of the Ohio River, and this region as a whole is a hunting region,” he said. “There’s a great customer base here, and it’s a shooting customer base and that has us all very excited.”
Recruiting credit goes to Jason Rine, the business development manager for the Regional Economic Development Partnership, and the Ohio County Commission and the Ohio County Development Authority were involved, as well.
“As soon as this project was introduced, it was a no-brainer to me because of this area,” said Commissioner Don Nickerson. “And as someone who loves to shoot and who has a son who loves to shoot, we’re very excited about this development and would be even if I wasn’t a commissioner in Ohio County. This development will further diversify The Highlands, too, and that’s a terrific thing because we’ve needed more entertainment and recreation, and this fits in both of those categories.
“We have a lot of retail and restaurants, and we have light industrial, lodging, and some entertainment, too,” the commission president said. “The Highlands Sports Complex has been a tremendous addition up there, and the Guntry Club, I believe, is going to be an overwhelming success because of what we love here in the valley.”
Open Invitation
Something didn’t add up. Landsman saw people and lots of them.
But.
“I have to be honest; when I first came here, I kept wondering where everyone lived. I saw a lot of folks and a lot of cars, but had nowhere everyone lived,” he admitted with a chuckle. “But then I went down the hill and saw the valley, and what a beautiful place it is.
“But it’s true; I came up here and immediately fell in love with the area. That was two years ago and today we’re under construction.”
Guntry will offer a variety of membership options and welcome members of the public, as well. The facility in Owings Mills features 34 indoor ranges, and shooters of all skill levels are welcome.
“We watch our memberships very closely because we don’t want our memberships to be too much for the area, and we also want our members to get a shooting lane quickly when they come in because they’ve made that commitment,” Landsman said. “If you want to shoot often, the membership is the way to go because after a couple of visits, you’ve paid for it right there. And at our Maryland location, we have some folks who come in several times per week.
“We welcome the public, as well, and sometimes folks just want to come in, pay the lane fee, and knock off some of the rust before they go hunting,” he said. “We have safety folks all over the place, and we have a lot of special events through the year, too. Right now, we have over 2,800 members in Owings Mills, and we’re proud of that fact.”
Landsman already has held conversations with law enforcement officials in the Upper Ohio Valley to explain what will be possible at The Highlands facility.
“We welcome law enforcement at our Owings Mills facility, and we hope it’ll be the same here. You have a lot of agencies in this area and based on the conversations I’ve had with a few of them, folks are really looking forward to it,” Landsman said. “Working with law enforcement is important to us because that’s where we come from.
“And I know everyone is going to be impressed with the ‘shoot house’ we’ll have. We’ll be able to put a car in the ‘shoot house,’ too, so local law enforcement will be able to work on vehicle takedowns and other scenarios.”
Incoming Crab
“It’s not just all about guns. I want to make shooting and training enjoyable.”
That’s what Landsman explained to Baltimore Sun reporter Pamela Wood in 2017 after he and business partner Brian Wolf announced their plan to convert an 84,000-square-foot former office building in the Baltimore suburb into a high-end shooting range.
“And that’s what we’re going to do here at The Highlands, too,” Landsman said. “People are going to have a very good time at a very nice place. At Owings Mills, people come in just to have lunch because they like our food so much.
“Our crab cake is delicious,” he said. “We had three of the top Baltimore chefs help us with our crab cake recipe, and we like it a lot.”
But it will take more than a crowded café to convince Landsman and his team to begin searching for a third location.
“We’ve been having some conversations about where we would go next if and when we’re ready to expand to another market,” the co-founder said. “But I can tell you that we’re going to try to get Guntry all over the nation. That’s our dream. We believe in the business model that much.
“Our members have told us how much they enjoy it, and their guests always ask us to bring one to where they live. We hear from people from across the country,” Landsman said with a smile. “I wish we could put them everywhere, but it takes time. We’ve also had some discussions about franchises, but we’re just not there yet. We want to see how our Highlands location does, and from there we’ll decide on the next one.”
