Release your rage at All Out Rampage ‘rage room’ in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS — Roy Green thinks about the things that really bug people.

“Anything that people normally have to deal with on a day-to-day basis,” Green said. “Their computers, their radios, phones — all that stuff they get frustrated with, I’ll take it.”

Those objects of frustration fly off the shelves at Green’s business, but not to new owners. His customers wreak havoc on the inventory, taking out their frustrations by attacking computers, cellphones and other appliances with baseball bats, golf clubs and sledgehammers.

“For a lot of people, this just lets out whatever you’re feeling inside and makes you feel a little bit better,” he said.

“It’s not going to cure it, but then again … I wouldn’t tell a therapist that.”

Green opened All Out Rampage in December, on his 34th birthday. He got the idea watching YouTube videos with his 3-year-old daughter.

“This commercial came on about a rage room,” he recalled one morning this week. “I was like, ‘That seems really cool,’ and I got to Googling: What’s the closest rage room? They have one here in town, I was thinking I could start my own. There’s two axe-throwing (establishments) in town, why not have two rage rooms here?

“With that idea I went down a rabbit hole, looking at different rage rooms, trying to compare, looking at reviews trying to see what people like. I came up with my own business plan and did my own spin on it.”

Green was looking for work after being laid off from his job driving a truck for Smithfield Foods.

“I was there for two years, and to me everything was perfect,” he said. “I got paid weekly, was off weekends. I loved it.

“Four or five months after COVID we all found out we were going to be laid off. They gave us a severance package, and I was thinking I need to do something with my money.”

Green has previous experience in the entertainment industry. He’s worked at Disney World in Florida, where he met his wife Katelyn, a Cedar Rapids native.

“We both were working at Disney on a college internship,” he said Green, who was studying hospitality and tourism at the University of Southern Mississippi after growing up in the Gulf Coast city of Gauthier, Miss.

While he enjoyed the work, “I was only making $10 an hour at Disney, and it was not paying the bills,” Green said.

So he earned his commercial driver’s license, which allowed him to follow his wife to Iowa in 2013. That led to the Smithfield job.

Along with those annoying computers and household appliances, Green stocks his three rampage rooms with bottles, crockery, panes of glass and other breakables. Local auto-glass repair shops supply cracked windshields, and another provides cellphones as businesses replace earlier models.

He’s become a bargain hunter, although he builds a lot of inventory simply by carting it off.

“I get a lot of donations,” he said. “A lot of that stuff I usually get from yard sales, and yard sales aren’t going on right now. Stuff Etc., Goodwill, Salvation Army — I hit all those places up. They help me out a lot.

“You’ll see me in there with a shopping cart until spring is back.”

Rampage sessions are priced from $10 — five pieces of glassware, five plates and a small breakable. There are “date night” and group packages, each with a menu of breakables.

“I’m trying to do more with the business side because I know they do group outings and things like that,” Green said.

“They want to make sure everyone’s getting along with each other, so I try to cater toward them and advertise toward those businesses. Tomorrow I have eight nurses coming in.”

When not booked, the rampage rooms are available for walk-in customers.

“I had a lady in here, she was seven months pregnant, and she beat up more stuff than anybody else in her group,” Green said. ”The age limit’s 13 and older, so I’ve had 13-year-olds in here, and the oldest was probably in their 60s.”

Green recently added painting sessions.

“They can bring their own wine, he said. “You get stuff to break in one room, and in the next room you have the paint. I started that two weeks ago, and I’ve done four parties so far and I’ve got one this weekend. It’s breaking and painting at the same time.”

Adding new experiences will attract new customers, Green hopes.

“A lot of people think they have to be mad to come here,” he said. “You can come here just to do something different.”

As he works through his first year in business, Green has plans for new attractions.

“When all the snow’s melted and it gets warmer, I’m getting a car,” he said. “I have a gravel lot over here, my landlord already signed off on it. The engine’s already out, you just pay a flat fee, they tow it to your place, you beat it up and they tow it back.

“I’m going to do group rates on that.”

Green eventually may find a location larger than his current 1,400 square feet, in the former Mod Salon Spa site. He selected the location for its price and proximity to his home, but he’s found it has potential.

“I signed a three-year lease,” he said. “In this area, there’s no other entertainment. There’s food, there’s banks, financial places.

“If I can stay the lone entertainment business over here I think I’ll do well — as long as people want to break stuff.”

Know a business in the Corridor that could make for a pretty cool “My Biz” feature? Tell us about it — michaelchevy.castranova@thegazette.