Rise Brands CEO Hana Hesselgesser talks about origins and expansion
Rise Brands CEO Hana Hesselgesser talks about the development company’s origins, its practices, and how the company has expanded.
- Rise Brands, owner of Pins Mechanical Co., 16-Bit Bar + Arcade, and No Soliciting, has named Hana Hesselgesser as its new CEO.
- Hesselgesser’s top priorities include leveraging technology to improve the guest experience and planning for future expansion.
- Plans for the Bogie Inn, a three-acre golf concept in Dublin, have been canceled, as have plans to relocate the flagship Pins site to The Peninsula in Franklinton.
- The company is looking to optimize its existing stores and may also incorporate AI into features such as tableside ordering.
In just one month at the helm of one of central Ohio’s most well-known Eatertainment brands, Hannah Hesselgesser is focusing on two top priorities at Pins Mechanical. It’s about improving the guest experience with artificial intelligence and creating a path to expansion.
Rise Brands, the parent company of Pins, 16-Bit Bar + Arcade, and membership club No Soliciting, recently named Hesselgesser CEO. Since Troy Allen founded the company in 2013, Rise Brands has grown to operate 16 locations in six states, including three pin sites and three no-solicitation sites in the Columbus area alone.
Hesselgesser said there are no plans to add new Pins venues in the Central Ohio market (which currently includes stores in downtown Columbus, Easton and Dublin), but he hopes to share more in 2027.
“I think Ohio State definitely still has a chance,” she said. “I don’t think we’re done here, not just with Pins, but with other brands. We’re not done with Ohio.”
But for now, at least, Hesselgesser’s focus is on optimizing Rise Brands’ existing sites, and that applies to the new concept as well.
Bogie-in project canceled
Asked about the status of The Bogie Inn, a three-acre entertainment campus that Rise Brands had planned to open this year on the site of a former sports bar in Dublin, Hesselgesser confirmed that the project is no longer happening.
He said the proposed site at 6013 Glick Road was negotiated with multiple municipalities, and the company spent a “significant” amount of time and money finalizing improvements to the site before ultimately realizing its business model was not viable there.
“It was disappointing for us, and it’s still disappointing,” Hesselgesser said. “But I’m excited about the possibility of bringing golf-related concepts into our family under the Rise Brands umbrella, so we have the means to do that and what’s available there.”
The news comes less than two years after Rise Brands announced it would exit Franklinton’s Peninsula development and shift its efforts to anchor stores downtown. The company had planned to replace its flagship Downtown Pins venue with a two-story Peninsula venue, but reversed course after withdrawing from the project and instead purchased the building at its original location for $3.4 million.
New CEO takes narrower focus at Rise
Hesselgesser said this narrower focus will guide her own leadership of the company. One of the ways she said she envisions improving Rise Brands’ active venues is by leveraging technology.
AI is already part of internal operations to improve efficiency, and Hesselgesser said the next step is to use similar tools to improve the customer experience. One possibility she’s considering is online tableside ordering instead of traditional service.
“I say ‘takeover’ because it feels a bit like an AI takeover, but I think if it’s used in the right way, it could be really great,” she said. “We want to make it really easy for Pins customers to walk in the door.”
When the time comes to expand, Hesselgesser said, Rise Brands needs to be especially careful in navigating space constraints across the city, something he said Rise Brands has learned through its operations in central Ohio.
While 16-Bit’s venue is roughly 4,000 square feet, small enough that future growth could be “plug-and-play,” as Hesselgesser calls it, Ping’s venue is much larger. For example, the Downtown site is four times the size of its sibling concept.
“We had to really think about how we approached the market, especially with pins, to make sure the area was big but not too big and to make sure we were in the right area for the demographic,” Hesselgesser said.
Mr. Hesselgesser also addressed the challenges of navigating today’s labor market. Maintaining a strong hourly staff is her real concern in such a stressful work environment. This is an issue that affects the entire hospitality industry, and Rise Brands is working to address the issue head-on, she said.
As “Etatainment” concepts continue to pop up in central Ohio, like Westerville’s 52,000-square-foot Smash Park, which opened in August 2025, Hesselgesser said he’s not too worried.
“The reason Pins has had such staying power and been able to expand into all these different markets is because they have stayed true to who they are,” she said. “I don’t see a need to change that anytime soon.”
Reporter Emma Wozniak can be reached at ewozniak@dispatch.com or @emma_wozniak_ on X (formerly Twitter).
