Rage rooms: where customers pay money to smash bottles, electronics and more

OPB is proud to be 100% community funded. Your support is more important than ever. Help build the future of OPB. Go to opb.org and join as a sustainer with your ongoing monthly contribution now. Thank you. This fall, let Curiosity lead you to Newport. The Newport Festival of Arts and Culture brings together music, arts, markets, culinary experiences, and community celebrations on the Oregon Coast. From September through November, take in world-class performances, explore the historic bayfront, and discover the stories that make Newport unique. Unlock exclusive lodging offers for OPB listeners at Discovernewport.com slash OPB. The Newport Festival of Arts and Culture. where creativity is in the water. From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I'm Jeff Norcross. There's a song by Limp Bizkit that I can't quote much from right here, but one line sums it up nicely. Give me something to break. Just give me something to break. It's a song from 1999, but it hits hard today based on how rage rooms are doing lately. Business is booming at establishments that only exist to let you come in and absolutely obliterate stuff. We're going to talk to two rage room owners now. Mark Marr is the owner of Rage Room Portland, which just celebrated its one year anniversary, and Tara Gale owns Outraged Rage Room in Vancouver. Welcome to both of you. It's great to have you on the show. Thank you. Thanks for having us. How is business right now? It's booming. It's good. It is. For both of you? It's raging. Yeah, raging. Yeah. Raging. Good. Yeah. Why do you think that is? I think that people, first and foremost, want to come out and just have a great time and have a great kind of social experience and, you know, eat some food, drink some beers and rage. And, yeah, what do you think? Yeah, I think it's more of letting loose, getting messy, thinking outside the box. It's not your typical, like, movie and a dinner. It's, you know, rage together, stay together. Like that. What do you tell me about the people who come to see you? We have all different kinds of people. So from, we allow all ages. So from young to old, I've seen 98-year-olds in there as young as too. And they're from all walks of life. So. Yeah, I would agree. It's, you know, we love 10 and up, but it's all ages. It's team-building events. It's corporations, but it's also birthday parties. It's date nights. It's going out with your friends. It's everything. Yeah, bachelor parties, bachelorette parties, divorce parties. Divorce parties are big. I imagine that would be vivid. Yes, it is. Yep, we've seen two-foot posters of people coming in to throw things out. Oh, so people can bring stuff in? Oh, yes. Yeah, they can bring pictures in or... What are the rules around that? None? None. No? Okay. None of my business. What you bring in there? With our business, we don't allow, like, political statements or anything like that. We don't like to dabble into that. We like to keep it away from that and just keep it on the fun and excitement of breaking things. But, yeah, people definitely come in. We were talking outside for, you know, when they're going through hard times as well as...

Obviously, just coming out to have a great time and a fun experience. But a lot of people come in to just, you know, get a break when they're going through like a harder time in their life. Yeah. How does it work when you come to your establishments? What do I need to know? What do I need to prepare myself for? What do you do? Loud music and breaking stuff. Oh, yeah. That's it. Yeah, like with ours, you come in, sign a waiver. We have you watch a safety video. And then you get all suited up. And then you go in there, you get a five-gallon bucket of breakables. You can add on stuff like printers, TVs, VCRs, VHS tapes. Oh, yeah. Any thing. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Office space, if you get a printer, we even play the song for you. Yeah. But you just go and get suited up and go let loose. Yeah. But what do you find that people really enjoy breaking more than any other? They love glass bottles, so a lot of them will reenact bar scenes, but definitely printers, too, and TVs, electronics. A lot of people get really mad at their electronics lately. Yeah, I think everyone has had an issue with a printer at some point in their life and has wanted to take a bat or a baseball bat at it, you know? Yeah, that would be satisfying. Yeah. Tara, let's start with you about the inspiration for creating your space. Yeah. Why did you make your rage room? So I suffered from PTSD from robbery, basically, back in 2017. And then when we moved up here, we're from Utah. So my husband was going to helicopter school. Things weren't working out. And he was cleaning out the garage. So he went to throw something. It hit the ground and just shattered. And I was like, it was music to my ears. So I'm like, can I do this? And he's like, sure. So he basically let me throw a fit in our garage. And I'm like, it made me feel like, I can't even describe how it made me feel, but it made me just feel like. alive and like just relieved. So I was like, there has to be something like this. So we started researching and we started seven years ago. So there wasn't much around then. So we kind of had to start from scratch and just build it what we knew, how to. And it's been great. Have you seen trends over the last seven years? Is it different from when you started in some way? Well, so when we started, it was COVID. And so that one, we had a lot of people coming in. We had to do it differently, though. So it would be like one group at a time, sanitized, next group at a time. We weren't able to utilize all of our redrooms at the same time. So, but we did really well during COVID because people, a lot of people were mad. And Mark, your place has been open for a year now. Yeah. Why did you start it? We started, we've been running Axewing. Celtic Axe has been around for seven years. And we were looking for. Axe throwing. Axe throwing, yeah. So we started Axeowing. I live from Portland Axe throwing actually got us going at a brewery in Oregon City. So we were looking for other kind of activities that people could do. We partner with breweries like Hopworks or Stickmen.

and Stormbreaker. And then we were looking for other activities to bring in that people could do when they're out at, you know, a team building event or just for birthday parties. And just to interrupt here, I'm wondering about the wisdom of having axe throwing and rage rooms so beer adjacent. I know a lot of people say that and a lot of people say it about insurance, right? Right. But, you know, what we do is we partner with, you know, brew pubs. And as, you know, I come from an Irish background and pubs are like family and community. So we definitely, we've got axe marshals and rage rangers that make sure everyone's safe, make sure that, you know, we don't want anyone that's intoxicated to be, you know, throwing axes or raging anything. But definitely eat some food, drink some, you know, if you're having a good time and then after you want to have a pint of beer, that's totally fine. But it's basically... Our coaches are there to make sure of them safe. Yeah. Can you talk more about the safety aspect? What else do you do to make sure people don't hurt themselves in there? A lot. Yes. They have to have on closed-toed shoes. We provide coveralls that they wear over their clothes. And then they have to wear cup-proof gloves and then helmets or paintball masks, basically. So. And then they sign a very lengthy waiver. Full coveralls. But, I mean, in our seven years of Axton, we've had at most a couple splinters. Because, again, we, you know, we pride ourselves. I mean, we wouldn't be in business if we were. if it wasn't safe. Can you talk about that transition from axe throwing to rage? How is that? Yeah, what's the jump? It's the same thing essentially is like, you know, it's a thing to do. It's an event and experience to do when you're out at team building events and you're going out for birthday parties and holidays and things like that. Like what we pitch to our brewery partners is let's bring you in more people. Let's have fun at your location. So you're not just a standalone location offering food and drink. Let's have an activity there. that's different than your regular team building event that isn't, you know, like bowling or, you know, maybe golfing. It's inclusive to everyone because everyone has had an issue with a printer in their life and could bridge it, right? I mean, from, you know, the new employee to the CEO. Right. Or the Portland traffic getting here. I'm like, this will make me reach. They bring a lot to your room. They do. I get that. Tara, you mentioned earlier that. You were inspired to open your room because of your own experience with PTSD and how just being able to go off for a while helped. Do you hear those stories from other people who come to see you all the time? They'll say it's cheaper than therapy, better than therapy. But we also have therapists and psychiatrists, bring their patients in and have them do rage sessions. So my big thing is everybody expresses themselves differently. So whether you need... to have a therapy session there with your therapist or psychiatrist. That actually happens? Oh, yeah. People come with their therapists? 100%. Yep. All the time. So we have like 15 active therapists that bring in their patients for things like this. And then we also partner with like foster homes. So they'll bring foster kids in who are just going through a rough time and just need to let it out in a different way. Well, I can see how.

A session in your room might make you feel better, but does it actually have therapeutic benefit that is lasting? Definitely, yes, because you're getting to scream, let it out kind of thing, you know, it's not just a... When I was seeing my therapist, it would be about breathing work, right? So it's like, okay, breathe. But then by the end of it, I'm like, if you tell me to breathe one more time, I'm going to break something in here. So, like, at the rage room, it's just like, okay. But, like, we definitely say, defy your therapist as well. Like, this isn't a fix-all. But we dear hear all the time that this is better than therapy. If you're just tuning in, we're talking about rage rooms and why they're so popular. Tara Gale owns Outraged in Vancouver. And Mark Marr owns R. Rage Room, Portland, which just opened a second location in Tualatin this month. Mark, can you talk about your first experience with a Rage Room? What do you remember from it? Yeah, so we went for spring break out to Boise, Idaho, and we went to an axling location that had readrooms as well. And we took the kids, and I was apprehensive. I wasn't, like, thinking I'd love it or anything like that. And I talked to the owner there, and he was like, it's doing great, Mark. Maybe I should think about it for Portland. But then my kids went in there, and then right away, they're just smashing things and just, again, to Tara's point, like, you get a relief. And then just seeing my kids, I mean, they just had a great time. My wife actually, she couldn't smash this cute little teacups, so she took that with her. She didn't have it in her to rage that one. But just, it's a relief, and it's just really fun. Does it ever get ugly? I mean, do people... turn on each other inside your rooms? Oh, no, never. I've never seen that before. I've had a breakup happen in there, but they've just brought, like, read receipts and put them in bottles and smash it in front of each other and leave. Yeah. Your rooms have different themes? Yes, our rooms do. Do yours? We do neon-themed rooms and music, but it's not, yeah, it's basically just a reason. Yeah, so ours, we have our graffiti room, which lets people write on the walls, and then our last session. of the night they get to graffiti in there. So it's all of their fillings, all of their stuff in the rooms. And then same with our fired up rooms. So it's basically, you know, what fuels your fire and then fire everywhere. But they also write their fillings out on the walls in there. And then we have an Alice in Wonderland theme room, which is called the Shroom Room. And we focus that one more towards kids because I don't want people writing, you know, crazy stuff in there. So that way that one's just more for kids. It just is like... off with their heads and we're all mad here kind of theme. Yeah. Yeah. Where do you find the stuff that you let people break? We get all our glass. We have a partnership with Oregon Dog Rescue, which is right, your neighbor down here. So we go around and we call it Glasshound and we pick up.

glass from local restaurants and pubs all over and we just they give us their glass we take it back to our place and then we wash it and then get it ready to rage and then we give a percentage back to the organ dog rescue in pub landia so it helps the bartenders get invested in what we're trying to do and just makes it easier than basically just dumpster diving which is no one likes to do we started out that way definitely yeah and and now so now we have contracts and sources which We get all of our bottles through and our symmetrics and glasses to break. I won't go into detail because then I let all my secrets out of how I don't have to dumpster dive anymore. Yeah. But, yes. Yeah. How do you respond to criticisms that, you know, the rooms may be fun, but they don't really. help people address the root causes of their anger or develop sustainable tactics for managing it? I mean, I don't think that that's our point is to say like, hey, come here to release everything and this is how you're going to deal with it. So it's just there is criticism from things like that's not healthy, but I remember being little and my grandma throwing dishes out the back door when she was mad. Or my grandpa taken a bat to a tree. Like, everybody gets angry and you need to release it somehow. And it's better to do it in, like, a safe, healthy space than to let it out on the road or wherever else. Same for you, Mark. Yeah, I think to her point here, it's a pressure relief thing. I mean, we're here for entertainment. We don't claim to be therapy. But if people can get in there and they feel relief. from what they're dealing with, then I'm all for them. I'm happy that we can both offer a place for them to experience that. Right. I mean, and every time somebody leaves, don't they leave smiling? Yes. Every time. So on our wall we even say, you're welcome. Because they all leave just smiling. Yeah, it's a lot of smiles and laughing more so than it's not sorrow. Yeah, nobody's came out mad. Is there anybody you think this is not a good outlet for? I think... See, the hard thing is, is like, we'll have people who are on the spectrum with loud noises that don't like it, but we offer earplugs and then headphones too, but they honestly love it. So there are some people that will come in and be like, oh, that's too loud, but it's like, well, it's a rage room. So I can't really quiet down the braking or stuff. Yeah. So do you anticipate ever having to turn somebody away? So we don't allow alcohol or anything like that. So if they come in, like. really drunk or anything, we would not allow them in. Same with closed-toed shoes. If you don't have closed-toed shoes, you have to go get some or you can't participate. Yeah. You, Mark, opened your second location inside Stickman Brewing and Tuolitan. Yeah. As you mentioned, just this month, in fact, so congratulations for that. Are there any lessons that you've learned during your first year in business that you're applying to this new location? Well, there's a lot. I mean, it's a lot of work. It's a ton of work. What do you mean? Well, it's from the business of axiowing where we were before, you know, you're just thrown accident targets. There's a lot of wood to deal with. But with the rage rooms, it's dump trucks. It's cleaning. It's glass. It's PPE gear. It's...

More cleaning. It's, you know, locating insurance. It's getting all these electronics and printers and then disposing of them in a great way. Well, the thing I'm most proud about is learning how to recycle everything. At the beginning, we were just going to the dump, and we didn't want to have anything to do with that, and it's also very expensive. But now we're 100% recycling all the glass, all the electronics that we go through to e-cycling here in Portland, Oregon, and then glass to glass on Columbia Boulevard. Yeah. Is your second room different than your first in some way? I think it's the same, essentially better building, and we made a little nicer. We have a mural artist named Derek that came out and he does amazing work. So got some really cool mural up there. Excellent. Well, it's funny you mentioned that, the creative work, because this is from a certain point of view, the antithesis of a space for creation. It's a space for destruction. Like, you know. in a way that a pottery studio is a place for you to express yourself creatively. This is a way for you to just, like, deconstruct. Exactly. So do you ever think about this, that this model is based on, like, creating an outlet for destructive impulses instead of creative ones? Not really. Just because everybody is going to throw tantrums in their lives. Like it's inevitable. Just like, you know, with kids too, that's a big thing with kids being like, oh, you can't touch this, you can't break this. For them to get to go into somewhere and actually touch and break the things, you know, like when you're going through a store with your mom and they're like, nope, hands to yourself, hands to yourself. So it's kind of like a roll-free zone of where you can let it out and then just... Yeah. My sister-in-law, Carly, was in the other day, and she's a real rule follower. And she just had the biggest smile on her face and was like, I felt like I could just let go for a minute here. Yeah, and just let your hair down, let loose, have fun, but in a safe manner. Exactly. Do you remember a client that came through who had a reaction and an experience that was surprising in some way? Um... I've had somebody who came in that actually triggered their PTSD. So rather than like with mine where it helped it, it was like it brought back something that was just like no go. So and if that ever happens, that's only actually happened to us once. And it was a surprise date that her husband was taken her on and brought her in there and it was, nope, we're not doing that. What did you do? So we let them go to our black light paint throwing room. Okay. Yes. So they got to go throw pain at each other instead with 90s music. There you go. Cheer them up. What about you, Mark? Any kind of stories that you can point to for unusual experiences? Not really. I mean, it's kind of your run-in-the-mill birthday parties. But I think that the... The interesting thing for me coming into this, like as a business person, I just wanted, you know, bodies in the door. But I was really proud and happy that people were actually finding. I was surprised that, you know, let's say like 60, 40, 60% people are just going to have a great time for birthday parties or whatever. But 40% roughly are coming in really because they need a break. They're going to, I mean, we were talking about this earlier. Valentine's Day is one of our busiest days. And they're going with their girlfriends or a bunch of guys come together and they go in. They just, they need a break.

break and that community that they're building together it's not just about raging it's about being there with friends and having that social experience i think is is what is working what's so great about our businesses yes and like the support like if you get a group of friends coming in they'll cheer each other on you know like remember he did this to you you know and smash a bottle kind of thing so it's like they're cheerleaders i'm wondering what you think this experience of owning these rage rooms has taught each of you about you know, managing your own feelings, your own anger, your own stress. Mine is more been like especially with the writings on our walls is that there's a lot of trauma out there and people are going through a lot of hard times. So it makes me look at mine like, okay, like you can deal with this. They went through that. So it kind of gives me a stronger backbone and bone and makes me more sympathetic to other people as well. What about you, Mark? Yeah, I would say I think that there's a lot of outlets for, you know, when people get stressed out, like working out or, you know, going on a run or doing whatever. And maybe if you don't have those options or this is another great alternative. So I think that is what's kind of really cool about it. Well, it's just I've been sitting here listening to you and you're both just so open and so upbeat and you sound healthy. Yes. And I'm wondering if it's your, because you're adjacent to this activity in the way that you are. I love the sound. So, I mean, you'll, you probably have your favorite. I go to sleep tonight listening to it. I record it. My favorite is sheet glass. Like the sound is sheet glass or windows breaking is, like, amazing. So satisfying. Yes. Tara, Mark, this was a blast. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Tara Gail is the owner of Outraged Rage Room in Vancouver. And Mark Marr is the owner of the Rage Room, Portland. The fatal shooting of a teenager at a protest in Seattle has gone unsolved for six years. This is open in your face. How are there no answers? Our investigation has uncovered new evidence and witnesses who say they've never talked to police. Did police ever call you? Not once. Listen to We Keep Us Safe, a new true crime series on the Embedded podcast from NPR.