We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jason & Heather Birdsell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jason & Heather, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

We moved our family from Southern California to New Braunfels, Texas in July 2018. We had talked about a big out of state move for years, and this time it just seemed to pan out perfectly from the job transfer Jason received, to the purchase of our new home. 4 days after moving to Texas our oldest son, William was diagnosed with cancer at age 9. For two years, we balanced William’s intense appointment, treatment and surgery schedule along with Jason’s new job, and two younger kiddos. Unfortunately William passed away at the age of 11 on May 3, 2020. We had discussed opening a business of some kind for probably as long as we have been together, and when your world has been flipped upside down and inside out, there’s no going back to “normal”. We knew we needed to create something new. We knew we needed to help other families fighting cancer diagnoses.
One of the biggest decisions we made when we were given William’s terminal diagnosis was to create as many memories as we could in the short time we had left with him. That idea was then transferred to our business. We liked the idea of axe throwing as something fun that anyone can do. And you’re bound to make a memory with your friends or family when you’re all learning something new. Then we expanded on it with the amount of space we wanted in the building and outside, along with other activities so that we could be a family-friendly spot. Having a space we could host fundraisers for foundations or just a family that needs a night out to forget about how hard every day is was a top priority.
New Braunfels is a tourist town with people floating the rivers in the summer and checking out Schlitterbahn, but there aren’t a ton of “experience” types of places to go. Especially ones that are family friendly. Creating something that’s just as much fun for mom and dad as it is for a 7-8-9 year old or teenager was our goal.

Jason & Heather, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Jason and Heather do not come from the axe throwing or entertainment venue world. Jason sold appliances at retail stores and then as a distributor for over 20 years. Heather worked in interior design and assisted attorneys for years, along with being a stay at home mom. Owning a business was something that was always an exciting idea but we were never exactly sure how it would fall into place. We do know people, and we know how to throw a heck of a party. We can definitely say that all of our previous experiences personally and professionally came into play when building Texas Axe & Ale. Heather’s legal knowledge meant that she could do all of the initial legwork to do all of the business licensing and filings. That interior design and architectural know how was also super helpful drawing up plans for the builder and talking to contractors. Once our building was completed, Jason had to build a bar, and a whole bunch of furniture. His background in merchandising and stocking has been incredibly useful for managing the bar.
Texas Axe & Ale is an axe throwing bar and venue. We have 6,000 square feet inside, 10 axe throwing lanes, a pool table, about a dozen arcade games, with about an acre of space out back with firepits and lots of seating. You don’t have to just axe throw when you come here. On Fridays and Saturdays, we have a food truck here, so we’ve got plenty of people that just come in to grab dinner and a drink at the bar and then go sit outside by the firepit. The greatest compliment is that Texas Axe & Ale feels cozy, despite being in a big steel building. It’s somewhere you want to go to just hang out and chat with your friends, bring your church group, or your motorcycle club. We have had a huge range of customers and its the coolest part.
We also host lots of team building events for companies or teams that want to just have a good time with their staff. Whether its just 12 people or 150 people, we can easily accommodate them.
Our customers become friends. It’s not uncommon for us to get hugs from our guests. How cool is that?! Given our personal background and the loss of our son, it’s been apparent that there are no accidents when it comes to who walks in to Texas Axe & Ale. We’ve had a guest that brought his brother because he just lost his wife and needed to get out of the house. We also had a mother who’s battling cancer but wanted to give her adult son an awesome 21st birthday. Having the opportunity to provide a place for them to enjoy themselves despite the hardships of their everyday life is the biggest blessing. Being given the chance to pray with our guests has definitely been our greatest honor.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Some of the old school approaches have been our biggest pay offs. We made small postcard sized flyers and dropped those off at a ton of surrounding businesses. Chatting with the staff or business owners at those locations often turned them into customers. Several business owners brought their team out, or at the very least brought their spouse out for a date night. Making those personal connections and having those conversations has been a pivotal part of growing our business. Don’t be afraid to have those face to face conversations and tell people what you’re about. We also make a point to say only good things about other businesses and even competitors. Our reputation is everything, and there is no reason to build ours by tearing someone else down. There’s more than enough business to go around. Again, those personal conversations are important, so keep your brand consistent from the things you create and post on social media to the words that come out of your mouth.
We also did a local vendor event before we opened. We did a giveaway but in order to enter, you had to fill out your name & email address. We also gave away stickers and koozies. There were 2,500 in attendance over the course of a weekend so this quickly built our email list. Sending out monthly emails to keep our customers engaged and remind them about us is great. We’ve only been open for 4 months and 25% of our customers are returning customers.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

We’ve hit the social media ground running. Say yes to every giveaway or collaboration post.
Team up with other business owners so that you’re growing all of your followings.
Be consistent. Whether you’re posting once a day or once a week, whatever the timing is that’s convenient for you, do it and keep doing it over and over. The algorithms love consistency.
If you’re on Instagram, make reels. It doesn’t matter how quick or silly, do it. People love it. I make reels for our regular occurring specials so that I can share them to our stories regularly which saves me time.
Pick one day a week and decide what you’re posting for that entire week and plan it out. Organize whatever pictures or videos you’re going to post so that you can just hit publish on that day and be done.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.texasaxeandale.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/texasaxeandale
• Facebook: facebook.com/texasaxeandale
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/texas-axe-and-ale-marion?utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)