The Axe House on Thursday announced via Facebook that a second location is coming to Brownwood in April of this year.  The owners, Michael and Lindsay Bellow, spoke with BrownwoodNews.com Friday morning about plans for the latest business scheduled open in the revitalized downtown area.

The Bellows had been looking for a location for their business venture in Brownwood for more than a year, and finally found a home at 306 N. Fisk.

We were looking for a place in Brownwood and we were at the Pioneer Tap House and Micah (Jaynes) and his wife were always so sweet and were telling us Brownwood is where you want to be and that’s what we were trying,” Lindsay said.

“We had gone to several events that downtown had helped host,” Michael added. “Micah (Jaynes) and his wife and daughter would be outside rolling and selling cotton candy and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t that be nice if we had jobs where our kids are just proud to be outside walking around with dad and mom at work.’ That continued to push us in the direction of being in downtown Brownwood.

He continued, “We had visited with (BMDD Executive Director) Ray Tipton over a year ago. I asked all sorts of questions in phone calls and emails with various other people downtown and had heard about all the incentives and all that. That piqued my interest back then. We kept our eyes open and wound up finding a place suitable for us on Fisk. It’s neat that the city has been so open to new businesses and is trying to incentivize things. If you ever try and open a small business, it’s a lot of work. With what Brownwood is doing downtown, it’s really helpful and helped steer us back into this direction.

“We’ve had such a warm reception from Brownwood on our Facebook page and website. I think this is going to be very positive for Brownwood and it’s going to bring some people downtown that might not normally go. We want downtown to be successful and we want to be part of that success.”

The Bellows stated the current plan is for The Axe House to be open April 1.

“It sounds like a long shot, but a lot of lanes are pre-assembled, so that leaves us with bringing in partitions basically and doing some small assembly there,” Michael said. “There are still some aesthetic things that need to be done to bring things up to meet our standards. If you go to our website, axefred.com, you can see the quality of work we’re going after. We’re not going to hodgepodge throw something together, although we will be able to put it together fairly rapidly.”

Lindsay touched on the genesis of The Axe House.

“We’d been talking about this and around the time the pandemic hit we were home like everybody else with nothing to do,” she said. “Michael has been in the construction industry for almost 20 years and started building lanes at our house and we would just throw axes at them. Then we did a date night one night, we made a weekend of it and went to a lot of places in the Houston and Austin areas, and that was probably April of 2021.”

Lindsay added with a laugh, “Out of everybody we’ve had come in, women catch on a lot faster than the men. The women really are a lot better than men.

Michael said, “It’s true. I’ve coached probably thousands of people now how to throw axes and women pick it up really rapidly. It’s a joy to watch really. They’re really apprehensive at the beginning and then after you talk to them, coach them through it and how to do it, they catch on really quick.”

Hours at the Fredericksburg location are 4 to 10 p.m. Thursday and noon to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and similar hours will be maintained in Brownwood.

“It’s going to probably match, three days a week and mostly weekend stuff, Thursday, Friday and Saturday and maybe some Sundays,” he said. “We’re also looking at league play but we don’t know when that will be or when we might try and implement that. It’s something we’re trying to get worked out down in Fredericksburg and when we get it implemented there, we could bring it to Brownwood possibly.”

For those unfamiliar with axe throwing, similar to darts, axe throwing is a sport in which the competitor throws an axe at a target, attempting to hit as close as possible to a bullseye.

“I’ve got a whole lot more out of personal experiences rather than purchasing materials goods or items,” Michael said. “You’re buying an experience and a memory that will last a long time, and it’s something that people wind up falling in love with because of the stress release.”

(story courtesy Derrick Stuckly of Brownwoodnews.com)