The Break Room

Overview

Put down your Kit Kat, for we've discovered a break that's even better than snappable chocolate-covered wafers: smashing stuff. To be more specific, we mean smashing stuff with a baseball bat — and it's a legitimate, all above-board activity at new Collingwood venue The Break Room.

Currently housed in the Collingwood Mastercraft warehouse after an initial pop-up at Brunswick's Kines, an appointment at The Break Room is a five-minute, sweaty task that puts you behind thick, plastic walls, wields you with a pink baseball bat and some protective headgear and lets you go to town on some very satisfyingly smashable items. For the moment, they're using plates and glasses as collateral. But if anyone can produce it, our 'ultimate smashable' would be a ceramic Matryoshka filled with glitter.

The Break Room was born in a moment of frustration (and through the efficacy of podcasts) by founder Ed Hunter, after he realised that everybody wants to blow off steam in their own way. And while some might prefer to hit the gym, Hunter is inviting you to hit some crockery off a stool instead.

Speaking of the stools, notches of pink residue from the so-coloured bats have been passionately left on them; reminders that other members of the baseball bat cathartic club (do I hear badges?) have bashed their way to sanity before you. For anyone studying their swatch patterns, the pink is Baker-Miller, and has been used in correctional facilities across America to help calm violent inmates. Yet Hunter heeds that The Break Room's goal isn't violence, but rather to reduce stress and harness those destructive tendencies in a controlled and fun way.

At $50 to smash your way to calmness for five minutes, this emotional outlet may seem a bit on the spenny side, but the beauty is in the fact that you're not breaking your own stuff — and some other guy will be picking up the pieces after you. These pieces are, in fact, added to the pile that hides further out back, where both shattered crockery and snapped pink swords from liberated brethren lay, which is a good indicator that the allocated time is probably ample.

So wait until the shutters go down, don your best Joaquin Phoenix impersonation and swing away at those inner aliens of yours by taking your aggression out in some organised chaos.