It’s a ‘smashing’ good time: Owners of a Rock Hill ‘smash’ room hope it’s a hit

Heidi Inman hopes her new venture in Rock Hill is a smash hit.

It shouldn’t be too difficult as the co-owner of a new business that allows people to smash breakable items with a hammer while participants party with a group of friends, like a bachelorette party or a divorce party.

At T-Wrecks Smash and Paint Splatter Rooms, people take out their angst against various glass and ceramic items like dishes, vases, kitschy items and VCRs. There’s also have a paint-splatter room where participants throw paint on the walls, each other and a blank canvas like abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock.

It’s unlike anything Inman has ever done.

A new venture

In her new job, Inman searches around, looking for items of value that people can smash. The part about searching for old items of value isn’t so different: In her former career, Inman was a terrestrial archaeologist, searching for valuable items near the Black Sea in Ukraine, where she worked on a medieval ship. She also worked as an archaeologist for the Seminole Tribe in Florida.

Inman, 41, has a bachelor’s degree in history from Winthrop University and a master’s degree in maritime archaeology from the University of Bristol in England.

She decided to switch gears with her career because the archaeology profession is transient and she worked far from her home in Florida, she said.

The Florida native also had the opportunity to work for her family’s commercial construction business.

What brought her to Rock Hill was an idea and a die-hard friendship with the co-owner of the smash rooms, Cheryl Yeager.

“Cheryl and I had always talked about going into business together,” Inman said. “And it just seemed like the right timing.”

Best friends working together

Yeager and Inman have been best friends for 18 years and have always talked about owning a business, Yeager said. They once considered owning an animal care business, where they would board pets, run a day care center for dogs, or a grooming venture.

“So when Heidi and I were kind of throwing darts at the board and thinking of ideas, it was animal care, but then also these adventure venues — and smash rooms came up and we just kept coming back to it,” Yeager said.

Yeager, 36, has a degree in a field unrelated to anything with smash rooms, as well. The Pennsylvania native has an associate’s degree in hotel hospitality from Johnson and Wales University. She was a general manager for a movie theater for a decade and a store manager-turned recruiter for a coffee company. The women met at Hollywood Video in Charlotte in 2006.

A variety of options in smash rooms

One recent rainy Saturday night in Rock Hill, T-Wrecks employee Tyliya Moses demonstrated what a smash room looks like.

She entered a booth-like room with a chipped wall that’s scarred from broken glass. She pushed down a plastic face shield and adjusted her two gloves. And with the whack of a hammer, glass flew in every direction with an ear-piercing noise.

“Part of what’s so great about the smash room is the sound of things breaking — and everything makes a different sound,” Inman said. “So we want to make sure that you get a wide range of those sounds.”

What makes T-Wrecks different from other smash or “rage” rooms, Inman said, is the variety of items smashers can smash. Other venues may offer mostly beer bottles, whereas T-Wrecks offers diverse options like drinking glasses, vases, ceramic bowls and trinkets. There are four smash room at T-Wrecks, each with space for two participants.

Inman said the pair chose Rock Hill because of the growth in the area and the efforts of local businesses to revitalize the downtown area. They officially opened in August.

“We felt like downtown Rock Hill was one of those places where it’s up-and-coming,” she said. “And honestly, we wanted to be a part of that.”

Researching smash rooms

The pair visited a smash room to do their initial research, but most of their research was done online, Yeager said. There’s only a few smash rooms in the region — House of Purge in Charlotte and Tonic Rage Room in Concord, N.C. There’s also Thrash the Smash Room in Columbia, S.C.

The T-Wrecks owners have come up with themes they hope bring unique opportunities to have a smashing good time.

Some of the themes include “Hate This Holiday,” “Pick Up Your Damn Toys,” “Grandma’s House,” “The Cubicle,” and “Obnoxious Neighbors.” They host bachelorette and divorce parties, and turn the rooms into “man caves” and “she sheds.”

“So instead of breaking your kid’s toys, you can come here and break our toys,” Inman said. “That way, you don’t have to replace them and you still get the joy of smashing them to smithereens.”

Smashers get 15 different items with the basic package, which start at $40. For that amount, smashers get 15 items to break and 30 minutes in a room with two people. Add $10 to that and you can smash one electronic item. For $60, smashers can pick a theme with 15 themed items and electronic items.

The BYOB, or “Bring Your Own Breakables” is $30 per person and 30 minutes of smash time. Birthday parties are for 8-10 participants and includes 10 items to smash for $320. Birthday parties in the paint splatter room are $280 and include a canvas for each participant to take home.

Participants must be 13 years old for the smash room, with the exception of birthday parties that include children younger than 13. Participants must wear long pants and closed-toe shoes in those rooms. The paint-splatter room is popular for children, Inman said.

The business also has a mobile unity to take to festivals, team-building activities onsite, block parties and various events. They’ve done a PTA event, where they offered gift cards at the cookie swap, and they visited a holiday market.

“Pretty much, if you have a hankering to smash, we have a package that’ll suit ya,” Inman said.

T-Wrecks Smash and Paint Splatter Rooms is located at 927 East Main Street, Rock Hill, S.C. 29730. For information on packages, visit twrecksmash.com.