Whidbey Island Living

EP 11 - Tossin Axes

• Reid Schwartz

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Discover the vibrant and exciting atmosphere of Tossin Axes, a unique entertainment venue that combines axe throwing with arcade games. Reed Schwartz talks with owner Daniel Cadwell about how this hub fosters community enjoyment and provides thrilling experiences for all.

• Introduction of Tossin Axes and its ownership transition 
• Insights into axe throwing training and encouragement for first-timers 
• Overview of the diverse entertainment offerings from pinball machines to retro games 
• Membership details and community value 

If you enjoyed today’s discussion or have your own axe throwing tales, share them with us! 


Reid Schwartz is not just a real estate broker; he’s a dedicated leader and active participant in the Whidbey Island community. A Navy veteran and 30-year island resident, Reid brings a unique perspective and deep-rooted passion to his work. As a proud Rotarian and a founding board member of North Whidbey Hearts and Hammers, he’s committed to making a difference in the lives of those around him. He also serves as the organization’s Public Relations Director, always on the lookout for volunteers eager to give back.

Whether it’s helping clients buy or sell their homes, connecting locals with community resources, or creating opportunities for neighbors to support one another, Reid is driven by a desire to make Whidbey Island a better place. He’s always looking for creative ways to help—whether it’s growing local businesses or offering a hand to those in need. For Reid, it’s about more than just real estate; it’s about building a stronger, more connected community through kindness, collaboration, and service.


Reid can be reached:
Phone: (360) 929-4808
Email: reid@reidschwartz.com
Website: reidschwartz.com

Speaker 1:

I'm Reed Schwartz with eXp Realty and I'm here with Daniel Cadwell, the owner of Tossin Axes.

Speaker 2:

How you doing today, daniel, I'm doing great Reed, did you suddenly?

Speaker 1:

get this idea that Oak Harbor didn't have enough sharp objects flying around and you decided to open this place up it wasn't me who actually came up with it, it was James Croft Started working here.

Speaker 2:

He kind of felt that it was worth me taking over, and so I kind of just kept that and expanded upon it. We're just having a lot more fun, that's awesome.

Speaker 1:

So you have ax tossing, yeah, and there's an arcade here, and then you guys got a bunch of pinball machines upstairs, so tell me about the pinball machines.

Speaker 2:

So the pinball machines are really great. A lot of them are from the 1980s up to early 2010s, and then we've recently started getting a lot more newer ones, so ones that were like made in the last year, like John Wick. That's a limited edition. Our pinball lineup is actually going to be changing drastically over the next couple months.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So if somebody's into playing pinball, they got the opportunity to come play some games and then it'll grow and there'll be new stuff. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2:

Always changing.

Speaker 1:

That's wonderful, keeps things interesting. So axe throwing you know, when I first came to axe throwing I thought you know that's going to be kind of hard getting that axe stick in the target. But you gave us some really great training. And what's been your experience with people's you know, when people come in first time taking a shot at throwing axes.

Speaker 2:

Well, a lot of people, people or a good amount of people are just sitting there like, oh, okay, I, I think I could figure this out. But then there's another good portion of people. They're like I don't know if I can do this. I've never done anything like this before, you know. It's like, hey, don't worry, we will happily spend the time and we will teach you how to do this. So what I do is I go through a safety brief and then we go through a training session and practice and we actually give extra coaching. Then we let you play around for about 30 or so minutes and then, when you've got the hang of it, we step back in. It's like, all right, we're going to learn some new stuff. We're going to teach you how to throw two axes at once. We're going to teach you how to throw knives, all this kind of.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I would say well, we had our bunch of people here. You know our party. We had a bunch of people that had never thrown axes and you and your helpers, your other employees, were fantastic at taking their time showing them how to do it. And people were successful. You know, you hit the target. That's great Hitting the target. However, getting the axe to stick in it is a little different than actually getting where you want it to go the stick in it is a little different than actually getting where you want it to go.

Speaker 2:

To an extent, it's one of those things where, once you start throwing the same way, you can see the axe always landing in the same general spot, and then you can start adjusting like, oh, I need to release up a little bit higher gear and then it's going to land in where I want. So it's all about actually finding out how your body interacts with Axro.

Speaker 1:

And then you know, it's not just, you're not just throwing Axro at a bullseye. You've got this computer system that has how many different games.

Speaker 2:

I want to say it's like 12 or 13 games. We've got a great variety of you know fun, simple games that are, you know know, fun for the whole family. You know even simple things like ticket or tic-tac-toe, but in this case you can actually like remove people's marks, and so it's like it adds another depth to that game, which is it's always been simple. But now you're like, wait a second, I could take away your mark and just stop you. It's like, yeah, now there's a chance.

Speaker 1:

I would say you even have battleship as a business. I mean, you've got the arcade, you've got axe throwing and then downstairs you've got a billiards table and some some tell me about the retro games you have down there I say retro games but in in most cases, like dreamcast, is the older, oldest machine I have down there currently.

Speaker 2:

Uh, I got n64 and a xbox original and then a original playstation 2. We got a good selection of old stuff just for people to just come back and get a little bit of nostalgia and play some of. Uh you haven't found a pong machine you put down there I mean I could get, could get an Atari 2600 and get Pong to set up.

Speaker 1:

I actually had a machine when they first came out with it. It was a Pong machine, that's all it was.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, we were kind of making the downstairs area more of our vintage-style stuff. So, we're going to be completely redecorating that area over the next year stuff. So we're going to be completely redecorating that area over the next year, you know, making it more kind of 1920s speakeasy, themed with a sci-fi twist, so like blade run.

Speaker 1:

Um, you know, as people come in here, you can come in and pay for axe throwing, rent lanes.

Speaker 2:

So if you rent a lane you get to how many people can play in the lane we can have up to six people in the lane and then if you happen to get enough people to do like five to six people, then what we're going to do is we're actually going to upgrade you to the land restoration so you save money. We actually want customers to have some value and you know fun. So I know that if I can save you a couple extra dollars, you can go spend that elsewhere or even come back and be like, hey, it's cheap to have fun here.

Speaker 1:

Well, speaking of saving money, you also have memberships.

Speaker 2:

So tell me a little bit about the memberships, all membership levels that I offer. They give you access to the monthly members-only party, which is the last Tuesday of the month from 6 to 9 pm, and it's open act showing open billiards, and you get $10 in tokens as well as a drink ticket that you can use for non-alcoholic or alcoholic stuff. So just in that you're getting a lot of value. The lowest membership tier I have is $25 a month and that's more so geared towards billiards and arcade stuff. And then the other one is the tax drawing and that gives you five free one-hour sessions. One is the Axe Roy and that gives you five free one hour sessions, in addition to all the perks that the uh the $25 one is. And how much is the Axe Roy? Axe Roy one is $80 a month. So I want to say for two people, it's $58 to throw regularly. So you're essentially getting two free sessions, uh, offuary one, in addition to the members-only party. It's like a $240 sales.

Speaker 1:

Because you know in this time of year there's not a lot of things to do in Oak Harbor, that it's rainy out there. I mean, you can go for a high-conception pass, but you're going to get wet. You've got a lot of stuff going on in here where you can be indoors out of the weather.

Speaker 2:

I would say that the biggest thing that we have to offer is that you can do a whole bunch of stuff that you can come in here and do. Like I had a group of people come in and they were like, hey, we're going to just do an hour on the pool table. And then, you know, they did their hour and they were like, oh yeah, we're thinking about it now. Hey, have you thought about doing an axe throw? Hey, do that too. It's like, yeah, so they ended up coming up doing axe throwing. I, even I. I know that even someone went and grabbed some arcade tokens too.

Speaker 1:

So, like I think they were here for like three hours yeah, when we had our party here, I mean we had people axe throwing and down. She cooled and we brought a little food in and, uh, you know, bought some drinks from you and people plan a couple of friends of mine playing this machine for about an hour and a half well, and that's the cool thing that we also offer is that, you know, don't feel like you can't.

Speaker 2:

Um, you know, bring in outside food. We actually encourage that because we we can't offer a hot menu right now. Oh, we got some, uh, you know, very reasonably priced snacks and candy bars and stuff. But if you're like, hey, I'm gonna go have a party for a couple hours, let's go get some pizza and have some time. So I mean, yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff for everybody and, um, it's, it's perfectly okay to bring outside too.

Speaker 1:

We'll grab a pizza and come on over and play some games. So now we've saved this to last, is that, if you save this video, share this video? Comment on this video? In one week, we are going to give away or Daniel's going to give away a gift card for?

Speaker 2:

a lane reservation so you can get five to six or up to six people and you can come here and throw for an hour for free.

Speaker 1:

There you go. So like the video, comment on the video, share the video, and we look forward to seeing you in Toss it Axis soon. Thanks, dan, of course. Thank you.