If you’ve been exposed to any bit of pickleball, you’d have heard the word ‘kitchen’ being thrown about. Why is it called the kitchen in pickleball?

Though a strange term to use, knowing what the kitchen is can actually be useful in making you a better pickleball player.

Why it’s called the ‘kitchen’ could be because it is a borrowed term from shuffleboard, where the purpose of the kitchen is the same, or it could be because the people who invented the game wanted to use a quirky name for it.

If you don’t play pickleball, you may end up quite confused about what kitchens have to do with pickleball, and you’re not wrong!

We read up on the rules of pickleball and its origins to determine why the kitchen is important and how it got the name.

What is the Kitchen?

‘Kitchen’ is definitely a strange term for a game that involves hitting a ball to opposite sides of the net. After all, what do kitchens have to do with this?

Before we go into why it’s called the kitchen, what is the kitchen?

The kitchen is the ‘no volley zone’, in pickleball, which means that you can’t come in contact with the kitchen, or stand in it while you volley, nor can you initiate a volley from there. Volleying means to hit the ball between teams without letting it hit the ground.

You can hit bounce shots from the kitchen though. This means that you can hit the ball if it’s already bounced on your side of the court, but if you do step into the area to hit the ball, you have to get back out as soon as possible. Otherwise, when the opponent hits the ball you sent at them, you might end up volleying in the kitchen, which could be a disadvantage to you.

Some skilled pickleballers use the bounce shot rule to their advantage, but again, it’s a difficult spot, so unless you consider yourself to be a skilled pickleballer, it’s best to avoid it.

The kitchen is the 7-feet on either side of the net in the court. Since spikes from the kitchen are pretty much impossible to return, the ‘no volley zone’ allows such spikes to be avoided.

Another rule of the kitchen – and this one isn’t necessarily even related to the game – is that you cannot drop anything in it. This could be your paddle, of course, which would make sense. But it also cannot be your keys, wallets, sunglasses, hats or anything that you had on your person.

How does this relate to the game? It doesn’t, but it is a rule, anyway.

You also cannot land in the kitchen. Some players like to toe the line and stand as close to the kitchen as possible without crossing over, but if you jump to hit the ball and land in it, it could be used against you.

You can, however, stand in the kitchen if you’re not returning any volleys. This means that if you’re simply standing in it and not hitting any balls – even the ones that come to you – you’re fine, and you’re not breaking any rules. But volleying from the kitchen is a definite no-no and you’d end up forfeiting a point if you do so.

On that note, since it’s pretty much instinct for players to hit a ball that’s coming at them, the opposing team may trick you into doing so by sending a ball your way while you stand in the kitchen, so you should just avoid it.

Why is it Called the Kitchen?

So, you know what a kitchen is, but why is it called that?

It seems like a silly name for a game like pickleball, and it is. There’s no definite reason why it’s called the kitchen, but there are a number of theories around it.

For one, since the game was invented by three dads, the reason could be that they just wanted to call it the kitchen as some kind of ridiculous dad joke between them. After all, even the game itself is called ‘pickleball’. While not wholly improbable, though, the more likely theory is that the term comes from shuffleboard.

In shuffleboard, there’s a small area behind the scoring zone – also called the 10-off zone –where if your puck lands, you lose 10 points. This zone is called the kitchen. Because pickleball is a game made up by combining aspects of various other games (like tennis, badminton, ping pong, and possibly also shuffleboard) it could be that the term kitchen was simply borrowed from shuffleboard.

On that note, there is no real agreement on why shuffleboard has the term kitchen in it either, so at the end of the day it’s another question mark.

Another theory, though this one is probably not as likely to be true, is that the kitchen gets its name from the phrase: “get out of the kitchen if you can’t stand the heat.”

The implication is that since the kitchen is a weird spot on the court where you can’t hit spikes or return them, nobody wants to be there (and thus, can’t stand the heat).

But again, this one is quite improbable, even if the game does come from three dads. The most likely – and the most sensible – approach would be to assume that the term is borrowed from shuffleboard.

The kitchen is one element of pickleball that makes it a lot more fun and challenging. It’s easy to accidentally slip past the line so you have to be very careful that you stay behind it. Despite its baffling name, the kitchen is an important part of the game, and any pickleballer should know about it to play properly.