Nonetheless, Eric Thoemke of Minot, added an indoor activity establishment to Minot in 2021. Up Your Axe, an axe throwing, beer and wine bar, debuted in September last year. The original plan was to open in June 2021.

“Construction delays, COVID, things got delayed with shipping, so what we did in the meantime is just give some of our employees and staff an opportunity to actually start doing it,” Thoemke said. “We had already hired employees on. We went mobile with the course,” which is something that Up Your Axe still offers aside from its permanent location.

The downtown location at 21 Central Avenue has seven axe-throwing lanes, and three are located in the party area that can accommodate groups of 20. Thoemke said the business hosts corporate and team building events and date nights.

“The biggest thing we stress is team building,” Thoemke said.

The party area at Up Your Axe in Minot. The area can accommodate up to 20 people.

What makes the experience different at Up Your Axe, according to Thoemke, is customers are trained how to effectively throw when they come in. The goal is for everyone to be able to hit the target after just three tries.

“We train you, and that’s something that you don’t really get anywhere else. If you went golfing, you don’t have a trainer teaching you how to golf. You have to pay for that. But here you learn how to throw,” Thoemke said.

Thoemke and his team also strove to make the environment at Up Your Axe as welcoming as possible. The wood décor and high-top tables mix with a comfortable couch area.

“We want everyone to feel welcome in the space. There’s a stigma around it, so we wanted to change that by creating an environment that was clean, almost felt higher end. It allows people to view the axes and the knives, almost as an opportunity to throw versus ‘I’m going to a warehouse and throwing axes,” because a lot of venues are like that,” he said.

The key word at Up Your Axe is “empower.” Thoemke said that was a concept he and the four staff members have taken with them through the experience of opening amid the uncertainty of a pandemic and through the day-to-day interactions with customers.

“It’s a very empowering experience. That’s our goal. We want to empower as many people as we can,” Thoemke said.

Thoemke is also the owner of The Putt District, which he opened in 2017. He also operates Indak Media with his friend Matt Maldonado and runs the non-profit, ND Strong, where he and Maldonado go to schools and help students make short films. The inspiration behind opening Up Your Axe is similar to the inspiration behind The Putt District: to add options to Minot’s activity scene.

“We opened The Putt District because there was nothing to do in Minot for families. There really is not a whole lot,” Thoemke said.

Extending away from family activities with Up Your Axe, Thoemke sought to open an activity for people 21 and over. He said they considered making it family friendly, but mixing kids with axes carried too much risk.

As far as the birth of Up Your Axe itself, Cole Anderson, Thoemke’s friend and now manager, was the one to suggest the idea.

“I did research on it. My wife Leigha and myself and my best friend Matt went down to Arizona and tested it. We did it one time, and we were like sold. It was so fun. I mean, we wanted to go back,” he said.

Axe-throwing isn’t a new sport. Thoemke said it dates back to Nordic hunting traditions, but has only recently become a sport for the sake of sport itself. The World Axe Throwing League (WATL) was founded in 2017 by representatives from Canada, U.S., Brazil, and Ireland. There are 334 WATL affiliates in the world, and axe throwing has appeared on ESPN. The key to it isn’t necessarily speed and strength, Thoemke said.

“It’s all fair game. It’s coordination. A lot of guys just think it’s just ‘throw it harder.’ It’s more like darts where it’s strategic. That’s the cool thing about axe-throwing. It’s an even playing field. Even people who maybe have a disability. Most people with disabilities can still throw,” he said.

Thoemke said that a lot of customers are returning. They also hold an axe-throwing league at Up Your Axe that runs for eight weeks in the spring and eight weeks in the fall. The league currently has 17 participants. The league tends to draw in people who are interested in the craft of axe throwing, Thoemke said. Some of the participants design their own axes.

Up Your Axe probably won’t be the last activity business that Thoemke will open. He said he has some ideas in the works for the future, but he’s not quite ready to share those publicly.

“One would be downtown, and then the other one would be out in the country more. Both would be really cool additions for Minot, but it’s just finding the right property and the right building and the right people to run it,” Thoemke said.

For more information on Up Your Axe, visit upyouraxe.com.