Mar 31, 2022
Love sits behind her desk in the front office of Love’s Smash Room in Fredonia.
Wendy Love wants you to smash your way to happiness.
Her Fredonia business, Love’s Smash Room, is literally a shattering experience. Patrons are provided with blunt objects, like golf clubs and baseball bats. Love also offers them things to crash and bash, such as old TVs, microwaves and glass bottles.
They must suit up in hard hats, gloves, goggles and heavy footwear as protection against injuries. There’s also a liability release to be signed, for insurance reasons.
Then, it’s off to the smash room to wreck stuff.
Some people call it “smash therapy,” and Love said she was sold on it after an experience with her son.
A view of the protective gear area at Love’s Smash Room in Fredonia. People have to put on goggles, hard hats, protective gloves and heavy footwear before they can smash things.
“In 2019, my son’s fiancee was very sick and we were not. … I don’t know how to word it. It was a very stressful time.
“It was his birthday, right after we received scary news. At that point, you felt guilty celebrating.
“By accident, I found a ‘rage room’ (in another area). I thought, ‘Oh my gosh.’ When I found it, I was like, ‘This is exactly what he needs.’”
Love’s son was able to let out some sadness and frustration, and at the end, he was smiling. “I had not seen him smile in months,” she said. “Literally right then and there, I thought, ‘I had to do this.’”
Armed with little more than a dream, Love “dove first into the deep end without a life jacket,” as she put it. She rented space on Water Street in October 2020 at a former copy center.
OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford Wendy Love, who runs Love’s Smash Room in Fredonia, takes a swing at a TV.

It needed extensive painting and remodeling, and Love could not open until May 2021.
“I had some challenges,” she said. “Essentially, I was building a room inside of a room.” That room needed reinforcement with lumber and metal, and it had to be done well. Fortunately for her, a good friend stepped in and offered his help.
She wanted it colorful “with cool, funky signs and fun stuff,” and that’s what she got. Her office and waiting room could be the most color-filled spot in Fredonia, with wild hues everywhere and plenty of crazy knick-knacks to draw the eye.
Love self-funded her business. She works another job full-time to help pay the bills.
“I didn’t use a bank. I was paying as I went. Figuring it out as I went,” she said.
Love had to wait two months to get her insurance sewed up before she could open. Just three weeks after opening in May, she shut down for a bit because her father died.
“It’s definitely been a roller coaster of highs and lows, but I don’t regret it,” she said.
She acknowledged that “it’s hard to stay afloat when you’re a first-time business owner in a pandemic.”
Love plans to expand smash room rentals to more than just the destruction of appliances and alcohol bottles. That’s limited to people 18 and older for insurance reasons, and only two people can do it at once.
Her idea is to let people go wild with non-toxic paint, water guns and water balloons. It would be more of a family-friendly thing, open to children, and people could aim at canvases that they could take home as souvenirs.
In the meantime, Love said, she finds herself acting as a sort of unofficial therapist. The act of smashing stuff gets her customers to unwind and let their guards down, and they tell her about their problems.
“A smash room, to me, is New Age therapy,” she said. “It is a great stress reliever. It is scientifically proven that an activity such as this releases serotonin in your brain.
“This is for me, too,” she added. “Life is short, why not do something that matters?”
Today’s breaking news and more in your inbox
SILVER CREEK — A community meeting was scheduled to take place at 7 p.m. Thursday to address allegations made in …
GOWANDA — Persia Town Court Justice Mark Schindler has resigned amid an investigation by the New York State …
It may not seem like much, but the state Legislature’s inability to pass legislation honoring the Tuskegee Airmen …
Today’s breaking news and more in your inbox

Copyright © Observer Today | https://www.observertoday.com | PO Box 391, Dunkirk, NY 14048 | 716-366-3000 | Ogden Newspapers | The Nutting Company

source