Photo credit: Hanna Pampaloni/Loudoun Now
Commuters along Rt. 7 wondering about the triangle-shaped tower emerging behind the treeline had their questions answered Thursday afternoon when Pinstack celebrated its grand opening with a ribbon cutting.
The building hosts over a dozen bowling alleys, 150 video games, a high ropes course, laser tag, rock climbing wall, bumper cars, bar, patio and an open-air balcony.
CEO and founder Mark Moore said the new center and his seven other locations across the country are “experiential entertainment destinations.”
The goal is to create a customer-focused place where families, companies or friends can gather to create experiences, which Moore said, is even more important in today’s digital world.
“I’m not the AI expert, but I will call it by the real name – artificial intelligence,” he said. “So, do you want real-life experiences or artificial intelligence … imagine your child, their first time up on the ropes course, they climb up and they hit the buzzer in their time, they look down and you take a picture. Do you want that experience that they’ll remember, or do you want to recreate it in AI, which nobody’s going to remember? I mean, you’re not going to send that to Grandma.”
The activities at Pinstack are designed to be available for all ages. Even the adults can do the ropes course, if they want to.
“Personally, I’ve been on the ropes course once, I’m done,” Moore said. “… but any age can bowl. The bumpers go up automatically now, so you can be a three-year-old and push the ball down, and the bumpers go up, and you’ll hit a pin. You can need to have the ADA accessible ramp, but it’s something anyone can do. We call it all play.”
Moore launched the first Pinstack in Plano, TX, in 2005. It was a relaunch of another model he had tried before, but decided this new option should reach a different clientele.
“We wanted a more upscale-type of environment, because we want the JP Morgans and the Gulf Springs and the Microsofts, and we want those people to do events,” he said.
That meant learning how to do food really well, he said.
“We really care a lot about the food. We do a lot of corporate events, so during the week, Monday through Friday, our locations in Texas can do maybe around 2,000 corporate events a year, each,” Moore said.
Read the full article in Loudoun Now.
