Battle Axe offers new experience at Santa Maria Town Center mall

A new location in the Santa Maria Town Center mall is filled with fresh plywood and plenty of metal.

Yep. Axe throwing has officially arrived in Santa Maria.

Battle Axe is a new entertainment venue located upstairs in the Town Center mall. The facility provides participants with an exciting and unique experience: indoor battle axe throwing. The place has eight lanes and multiple axes to test one's ability.

Shelley Stuckey, owner of Battle Axe, opened up a location in San Luis Obispo nearly two years ago. She and her husband, Neal Stuckey, did not invent the sport of axe throwing, but they created the business that has the only indoor axe-throwing facilities in San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria.

Battle Axe Santa Maria instructor Caleb Alalem, demonstrates axe throwing to a group at the Santa Maria Town Center East mall.

When asked how she landed on axe throwing, Shelley Stuckey says that seeing her father reach 79 years of age, things he enjoyed like bowling or golf became a little more challenging. She realized axe throwing was something that their 17-year-old daughter and her father could still do on a competitive level.

"To see different ages, everybody from 8-and-up, to come in and be able to master something really brings out a lot of joy and happiness for us," said Stuckey. "It's great for a first date. It kinda weeds things out. Is this person gonna be kind? Is this person a sore loser? How competitive?"

Staff member Caleb Alalem, popularly known as Tako, helps participants with axe throwing training. He is currently a student at Cal Lutheran University and says he loves being part of a family-owned business.

"I go over the rules with everybody, teach them how to throw and we watch them throw and give them pointers," said Alalem. "The biggest thing I see is that people try to throw it like a baseball and they bring their elbow out, but it's more like darts. You point your elbow towards the board."

Battle Axe Santa Maria offers single and double throwing lanes for individual and group experiences at the Santa Maria Town Center East mall.

Contestants fire axes at a target painted on a plywood wall from about 10 feet away. Participants are usually instructed to throw the axes using a two-handed overhead motion for best results.

The logo for the business was crafted by students from Cal Poly and Stuckey says students used the likeness of her and her daughter in the logo to represent multiracial women in the axe-throwing community that is often male dominated.

"If you go to an axe-throwing event you’ll see the Vikings and these scary things," said Stuckey. "We wanted a softer, more gentle approach to feel more inclusive. We wanted to empower everyone and so that's why we did the two female figures, somewhat after the likeness of my daughter and myself, being multiracial."

Stuckey says her family has roots in Santa Maria, both her parents are graduates from Santa Maria High School. Her grandparents lived in Guadalupe for the majority of their lives. To showcase further representation, Battle Axe hired local artist Tanner Weber to implement graffiti art in the business including an array of flags.

"You'll notice some of the artwork we have, we have the American flag, we also have the Mexican flag, we are also going to be adding the Philippines flag, Japanese flag, Portuguese flag," said Stuckey. "To honor some of the ancestors that have roots here particularly in the Santa Maria Valley. On my dad's side, my grandfather was a Filipino immigrant and on my mom's side my grandmother was an immigrant from Mexico."

Outside food and drinks are allowed inside Battle Axe, though no alcohol. Stuckey says they understand that sometimes families are on a budget, "especially in these uncertain financial times," so she wants everyone to feel welcomed to pack a lunch and join in on the fun.

Samantha Reeder aims her mark Friday at Battle Axe Santa Maria, the newest entertainment venue at the Santa Maria Town Center East mall.

Reservations for Battle Axe are available online or by calling the location. Battle Axe also welcomes walk-ins.

"We are also available for private parties, quite often different business birthday parties, sometimes people do wedding events," said Stuckey. "We have had people who hosted divorce parties. We've had all kinds of different and interesting parties, so we can block off private times."

Proud owner of a local family-owned business, Stuckey said she has memories of being a child and visiting the Town Center mall with her grandparents and just being in "awe" of all the businesses and hoping that one day she would be able to own a business.

"My husband and I want to continue to mentor people of all ages and aspire them to plant roots here in Santa Maria and to build the business community. It's something that's very important to us," Stuckey said. "We both graduated from Fresno State, so we want to share that knowledge so more people can bring businesses here to Santa Maria and our local surrounding communities."

According to Neal Stuckey, Battle Axe helped 114 organizations and donated over $25,000 through direct funds, gift cards and participated in fundraising events last year.

"We are really open to helping schools, nonprofits and we are going to continue to offer discounts for our first responders, birthday discounts, we also do a discount for our veterans and military active or retired," said Neal Stuckey.

For more information or reservations visit www.battleaxeslo.com/ or call (805) 363-2300. Prices vary depending on time and number of participants. The cost is $20 for one person to use a lane for 30 minutes. For a small group, between two and four people, the cost is $30 per person for one hour of axe-throwing time. For a medium group, with five to 10 people, the cost is $35 per person for 1 1/2 hours of throwing time.

April Chavez is the Santa Maria City Reporter for the Santa Maria Times. If you have information, or a story idea that you would like to share, send her an email at [email protected].

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