Throwing a tantrum? Do it in The Breakroom

Have you had a hissy fit lately?

What about a tantrum?

After weeks confined to our homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have come close to having a meltdown.

If you haven’t had one, and if you need to blow off some steam now that Missouri’s “stay-at-home” order is over, you can do it at The Breakroom, a new business in Cape Girardeau where you can break things to your heart’s content.

Located at 21 S. Plaza Way just off Independence Street, The Breakroom opened briefly in March before temporarily closing during the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak.

Now, husband and wife owners Jeff and Terri Robinson have reopened the business and are ready to give their customers a break … literally.

The Robinsons moved from Doniphan, Missouri, to Cape Girardeau a little more than a year ago. Jeff, a former law enforcement officer, opened Task Force Security Group in a storefront along South Plaza Way. The space next to that business was vacant and the building’s owner, Andy Patel, asked the Robinsons whether they’d be interested in occupying it.

Terri Robinson worked as a travel agent before COVID-19 curtailed that business. She remembers thinking they had no use for the additional space until her daughter, who lives in Tennessee, called.

“She said, ‘Mom, I saw this cool thing on TV called a rage room’ where people go and break things,” Terri recalled. “She said we needed to open one up, and I said, ‘Are you crazy? Nobody’s going to do that.’”

Her daughter subsequently opened a rage room in Paducah, Kentucky, and soon after, the Robinsons leased the space next to their security services business.

“We decided this is a college town and could be perfect for this,” Terri said. “Students have stress from finals and everything else and now we all have stress from coronavirus.”

The Breakroom’s prices range from $15 for the “BYOC” (Bring Your Own Crap) package all the way up to $300 for “The Office,” a package for groups of up to six, often co-workers, who can spend 90 minutes taking out their frustrations on office equipment.

“We set up a desk with computer monitors, telephones, printers and the whole nine yards of what you’d have in an office,” Terri said. “How many times have you gotten so angry at a computer you wanted to throw it across the room? You can do it here.”

Customers clad in protective face shields, gloves, shoe covers and jumpsuits use baseball bats, crowbars and hammers to reduce everything from beer bottles and dishes to keyboards and televisions to bits of rubble.

In addition to “BYOC” and “The Office,” other packages include “The Hissy Fit,” “The Tantrum” and “The Meltdown,” each offering differing types and quantities of “smashable” items, in 15- and 30-minute segments, priced from $20 to $50.

For $60, you can buy “The Steamroller” package, in which the Robinsons frame up to five photos of your ex (or anyone else) and put their names on plates and other throwable and smashable items you can pulverize for a half-hour.

“I have a lady who comes in when she gets mad at her co-workers,” Terri said. “She’ll call me and we’ll write their names on stuff for her to bash. It’s therapeutic for her.”

“We have someone else who says this does her more good than therapy,” Jeff said. “She says she gets more out of this when she’s dealing with her anger issues.”

“One woman cracked us up because she came in and was so mad one day that she broke one of our (aluminum) bats,” Terri said. “The following Saturday, she brought her husband in. There was a lot of rage in that family!”

For $80, couples can enjoy “The Date Night” package. “In that package, we set things up so it looks like a romantic dinner,” Terri said. “They come in, we take pictures and when they’re done, they just smash everything.”

Breaking things isn’t just an activity for adults.

“We had a mom come in with her 9-year-old daughter,” Terri said. “They went crazy and had the best time.”

For safety reasons, children younger than 16 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian during a bash session, and while 16- and 17-year-olds can participate without adult supervision, a parent or legal guardian must come with them to sign a waiver form.

The Robinsons have shelf after shelf of beer and wine bottles along with ceramic figurines, plates, glasses, toys, computer keyboards and small appliances, all awaiting their destiny in one of The Breakroom’s smashing areas.

Southeast Missourian business editor Jay Wolz swings a bat while testing out The Breakroom on Thursday at 21 S. Plaza Way in Cape Girardeau.Jacob Wiegand

“A lot of this stuff has been donated to us,” Terri said. “I hit yard sales like crazy along with Goodwill and thrift stores.”

She said several bars and restaurants regularly donate bottles to her. “I just have to go and pick them up,” she said.

In addition to The Breakroom’s “destructive” attributes, the business also offers “rage painting” that allows participants in protective clothing to “spatter” up to five colors of paint on blank canvases (and often on themselves as well).

For now, The Breakroom is open on Fridays and Saturdays by appointment only and no more than 10 people are allowed in the building at the same time in keeping with social distancing guidelines.

In addition to The Breakroom and Task Force Security Group, the Robinsons also operate a party bus service available for groups such as bachelorette and bachelor parties. They also have plans to expand The Breakroom by adding a family game area and a “mobile” rage unit suitable for festivals, company picnics and other corporate outings.

More information is available on The Breakroom’s Facebook page.

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