AxeVentures Axe Throwing Berkeley — Attraction in Berkeley

Came with my husband for a date night this past Friday. We were supposed to come last month but were unable so I'm glad we were able to this time despite the weather. We got there, found street parking immediately, and walked in. We were greeted, we signed waivers, and waited for our session to start. The employee who gave us our instructions was super nice and friendly and periodically asked if everyone was doing alright during our session. We were a party of 2 next to another party of 2 and near a party of 8 on 3 lanes. It's was a cozy atmosphere. They had waters, soda, Gatorade, and snacks for sale and they also had cool neon lights for photo backdrops. On the lanes, there were 4 different axes to choose from which was a fun variety. The bright targets were a nice touch. They also had board games available for people to play. When I went to buy some sodas, the employees were very nice to chat with. I hope I have the opportunity to come back with my son or my meetup group. Legitimately, our only issue was the people next to us who spent more than half the time taking photos in their lane and just slamming the axe into the target or carving into the wall or taking up space by throwing side by side. Why do people...

What a delightful way to spend an afternoon! Axeventures has a cozy space on Telegraph, just far enough from downtown Berkeley to make parking feasible, packed with lanes for throwing axes. They have many other games to occupy their patrons, but I cannot imagine being distracted from the task of lodging an axe in the bullseye. Each lane comes with four axes: A medium-sized axe, a small-headed hatchet, a double-headed axe and a tiny axe, really a throwing knife with axe-like blades. Unless you're a lumberjack, I highly recommend the tiny axe, as it's much easier to control and extract from the target without making mulch of it. The instruction at the start of our session was quick but thorough, and within a couple of throws, we were managing to get the axes to stick in the target. Our 90 minutes went by in a blur of changing weapons, retrieving thrown blades from the target (and occasionally digging them out of the mulched lane) and comparing footwork and blade position to where it ends up on the target. We didn't even get around to the laminated stack of suggested games for making it more interesting, even though there were just two of us. Highly...

AxeVentures meets the bare minimum of axe throwing. You will be handed a few different axes, you'll be pointed toward a lane, and one of the associates will review safety measures with you. After that, you're on your own. The tables near the lanes do have some guidelines for how to "play" and a few blank sheets of paper to keep score or set up a tournament.

I may have liked this experience better if I didn't already have expectations set (much) higher by other excellent companies. In the past, I've gone to places where you have a staff member who stays with you, teaches you how to throw the axes and helps support your throws. Everyone can throw an axe into a wall with a few pointers, and it was disappointing to see so many of my friends struggle to throw, feel defeated because they couldn't get anything to stick, and then just sit at the table and watch the rest of the time.

Other places I've been to will also help facilitate a round robin and tournament. They'll match people up, keep score, tease and encourage you, and overall make the experience incredibly memorable. AxeVentures does none of this.

I would not recommend going to...