Indulge your inner Hulk at Hackensack's Rage Room

Got a problem with the Rage Room?

Yeah, you, buddy. Jeff Sherfer is talking to you.

You got a problem with his new attraction in Hackensack that allows you to go full-on Hulk — smashing, crashing, whacking and whamming a room full of breakables with clubs, crowbars, mallets and baseball bats?

Didn't think so.

TV sets, dishes, Dresden figurines, wine bottles, vases and tureens are among the many breakables with which Sherfer furnishes his little chamber in the back of Escape Room NJ, his 3-year-old "adult entertainment" venture in Hackensack.

And by "adult entertainment" he doesn't mean what so many of us do in the Stormy Daniels era. He's talking about legitimate fun for adults — who seldom get to enjoy themselves the way kids do, he says.

"I want to change the phrase," Sherfer says. "I want adult entertainment to actually be adult entertainment. Fun for adults."

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Escape Room NJ, his Hackensack storefront enterprise — he plans to open another in Pompton Lakes soon — contains several attractions that have become trendy in recent years.

There is hatchet-throwing, which has suddenly become more popular now than at any time since the French and Indian Wars. There are "human bumper balls." There is "Airsoft" ("like paintball without the paint," Sherfer says).

There are two "Escape Rooms" — those life-size puzzle boxes where customers get to play detective and think their way out of confinement. And Escape Room NJ also has a "virtual reality" variation: players wearing headgear navigate a cyber-landscape where a wrong step could send you plunging off a building.

But the Rage Room is notable for its simplicity. What you see is what you get. And then you get to smash it.

"You gotta have fun and break everything, "Sherfer says.

Rage Rooms are not new, exactly. They go back at least as far as 2008, when The Anger Room in Dallas gave Lone Star folks a chance to blow off some Texas-size steam. But in these tense times, they've become — wait for it — all the rage.

Customers at Sherfer's attraction wear helmets, visors and protective clothes, and are allowed into the room no more than two at a time. But most people, he says, really prefer to be alone. They don't want others to see them at their most homicidal, cursing like a maniac with a mallet in their hands.

One catch that may make you enraged: the Rage Room doesn't take walk-in traffic.

Reservations are a must for this attraction, which is really geared, Sherfer says, to groups, parties and corporate team-building exercises.

"You're going to find mostly your businessmen, people who just want to take off some steam, relax, and break some things," says Sherfer, originally from Fair Lawn. "We're not currently open for people to just walk off the street."

Given all the anger that centers around the workplace these days, it seems like Sherfer has found his target audience. He offers packages at various price points, ranging from "Stressed" (eight small breakables) to "Raging" (15 small breakables, 12 medium breakables, 10 large breakables, a printer and a TV).

There is also an economy package for those whose stress is caused mainly by money. BYOB (Bring Your Own Breakables) is $60.

Finding the stuff to smash isn't so easy, he says. "We have to source it," he says. "Basically lots of garage sales, Craigslist."

Compared to the average therapist, Rage Room is certainly a bargain. But whatever its value as a mental health aid, Rage Room is mainly about entertainment, Sherfer says. Adult entertainment.

You got a problem with that?

"Realistically, over the age of 40 years, there's just no more fun," he says. "It's birthday parties at a restaurant, dinner for every celebration. I wanted to do something different. That's the goal, to get a center that has escape rooms, hatchet house, things for adults to do."

WHAT: Rage Room

WHEN: Appointments available 9 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week. Reservations necessary.

WHERE: 157-C Main Street, Hackensack. 1-833-724-3766 or rageroom.today

HOW MUCH: $60 to $300 depending on package. escaperoomnj.com