Blow off steam at Rage Philly smash room for fun, therapeutic experience

Failing her veterinarian tech exam for the second time back in 2018 sent Nyerera Jordan into a rage that drove her to want to do one thing, “F_c* $h!t Up.”

“I told her there wasn’t anything like that in Philly,” said Jordan’s mother, Kia Tull. “But when I looked into it, I saw that people will actually pay to break stuff, so we decided to start one here.”

Rage Philly , “a place where you can F_c* $h!t Up & Leave without penalty!!!” is a warehouse room in Elkins Park, Penn. where visitors can smash, break and destroy items from as small as a wine glass to as large as a vehicle. It also has a Glow-in-the-Dark Splash Room where children 13 years old and younger can splatter neon paint on the walls of the room or across a canvass for a souvenir.

“We get more teens than we do adults, but of the adults, the number one professional who comes here are teachers,” Tull said.

Tull works full-time in the psychology department of a medical college in Philadelphia. She recognized that Rage Philly could assist in relieving stress and anger. When Dr. Charlotte Andrews, the executive director of The Lotus Well , reached out to Tull to start a partnership, Tull was eager to help.

The Breaking Point is a program where patients spend time smashing old office equipment, breaking liquor bottles and dishes, and beating up house appliances, then sit down with a licensed healthcare professional as part of a therapy session.

“Not everyone is comfortable lying down in a chair and talking about their feelings,” Dr. Andrews said. “There are many ways of managing stress or grief, and we want to allow multiple outlets in order to do that.”

Ironically, Dr. Andrews and her family recently participated in a car-smashing session at Rage Philly after the loss of her cousin, Heather Rainey, a 47-year-old army veteran and mother of two children. She was killed in a shooting in June, and soon the family will host a candlelit vigil for Rainey.

“She was like my sister,” Dr. Andrews said. “And as way of attempting to cope and start the process of grief, we came in here and did a car smash.”

Dr. Andrews and her family are not alone in their interest of releasing anger and sadness at Rage Philly. Grief is written on the hallway walls from the lobby all the way back to the smash room. One visitor wrote, “You don’t get to own my thoughts anymore. F*** you & f*** your white supremacist religion. -AJ”

“That was from a girl who hated her parents and the values they tried to instill in her,” Tull remembered.

Another visitor anonymously signed the wall writing, “I should have left years ago.” The powerful messages lead Tull to believe that she is helping the community in more ways than she expected.

“I keep a map of customers who came in from all around the world,” Tull said. “It’s amazing to meet all these people and hear why they came.”

Rage Philly is a reservation-only experience. Sessions run five, ten and 25 minutes long and can be booked for up to 12 people. Rage Philly is always accepting donations of old office machines, household furniture and junk cars. For more information, go to Rage Room Philadelphia .

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