Indoor Extreme Sports in Travis is rein ventin g pain tball, laser tag and a number of other recreational sports

by Jessica Jones-Gorman • Photo By Alex Barreto

Bored with the bar scene and disappointed by the lack of innovative recreation available to Staten Island adults, Ryan Chin and Eric Kushner often spoke of changing the borough’s social landscape. So, the duo recently took a chance, invested in an uncommon business model, and launched an Indoor Extreme Sports center on the West Shore.

“We felt there was a lack of quality entertainment available to tweens and adults,” Chin said. “There’s not much to do here on Staten Island, so we decided to provide that demographic with unique activities to fill their weekends and other free time.”

Chin and Kushner scouted out the location (a former chocolate factory in Travis) with partners Peter and
Christopher Fermoselle, who have owned and operated the Extreme Sports flagship location in Long Island City for the past 10 years.

“This building was formerly home to Superior Chocolates and was vacant for a decade,” Chin said. “The owners really weren’t open to leasing it out right away because there was a 100-year history here, but they met with us and agreed to the lease. We were under construction for over a year, repurposed a lot of the
existing material left over in the factory as a sort of homage to history, and brought in enough material to fill the 20,000-square-foot warehouse.”

That effort included bringing in old windows from a 100-year-old barn in Pennsylvania and reclaimed wood from several different sites across the country— elements which added to the realism of the business’s design and paintball and laser tag build-outs.

“Our facility is completely unique in that we offer a totally immersive experience,” Chin said. “‘Be the Game’ is our catch phrase, because you are pretty much inside a video game here. We use former law enforcement training equip-ment that has been repurposed for civilian amusement, so our software is the real deal.”

Both the Long Island City and Staten Island Indoor Extreme Sports locations are home to the city’s only indoor paintball/ReBall center, which Chin says is changing the way people play the game.

“We offer a paintless paintball called ReBall which has turned it into more of a social game: No mess, no smell, no weeds or mud or ticks to deal with after the fact,” Chin said. “You can come and play with your friends and still go out afterward. We still feature the traditional gun and mask, but there’s no more mess and expensive paint.”

The facility also features three different types of laser tag (Zombie, Arena, and Black Ops), and there’s also Archery Tag, a sort of Hunger Games-meets-dodgeball event in which gamers are equipped with bows and arrows; a Zombie Experience where players battle wave after wave of undead who are unleashed in an asylum; and an Escape Room, where participants must find clues, solve puzzles, and otherwise use their minds to plan an escape.

“We put our own fresh spin on traditional games,” noted Chin, who left his career in finance to reinvent himself as an entrepreneur, adding that borough residents are embracing this new recreation concept on a number of levels.

“The response has been overwhelming,” Chin said. “We do a lot of bachelor parties, Sweet 16s, adult birthday parties, and even corporate team building events. The Long Island City location has hosted events for companies like Google, Smith Barney, and Goldman Sachs. We’re not your traditional kid facility, but
we do host birthday parties for children and serve pizza, soda, and chips. Celebs like Kelly Ripa have hosted parties for their kids at our space, and we’re being welcomed here on Staten Island by parents who want their kids to remain active.”

Party packages begin at $269, and vary depending upon the number of players and which design suits the child’s age group.

“Our Arena birthday party is designed for younger players of multiple levels and different abilities,” Chin said. “The room is smaller and we tone it down a little so it is not as scary and
the sound effects are not as spooky for a five- to 10-year-old. In our bigger Black Ops experience, you’ll actually hear bullets whizzing by and helicopters flying overhead.”

Despite talks of opening a third location in Suffolk County, Chin and his partners are now focused on building the brand, attempting to infuse the tri-state area with their new concept. That said, they have not completely ruled out the idea of franchising the family-owned business.

“So far we’ve been very successful,” Chin concluded. “If we can bring this concept to a wider audience and really popularize this theme that would be a wonderful opportunity as well.”

Indoor Extreme Sports
501 Industry Road / 718.361.9152 / indoorextremesports.com