What has the mall always needed? Bounce houses and laser tag

If we had one complaint about Concord, its been the lack of bounce house and laser tag venues. It seems like almost every week we talk about getting our bounce on, only to remember there’s no place to go.
There are other times when we just want to shoot each other – not with a firearm, of course, but rather a laser gun. One of those ones that doesn’t burn or vaporize anything, just makes cool sounds and lights up. But we’ve run into the same problem – there’s nowhere to do it.
Until now.
Just a couple weeks ago, Dan Caouette moved his bounce houses, Astroturf and laser tag supplies into the former Old Navy storefront at Steeplegate Mall and painted the walls bright, solid colors.
What was once a chain clothing retailer is now a “hopping” entertainment center for kids of all ages, right next to the food court.

When you walk in, you immediately notice the new paint job that creates a very kid-friendly atmosphere. You’ll also see about a half-dozen inflatable bouncy structures (though at least five more have already arrived and are waiting to be set up), a Sumo wrestling ring, nice leather couches and some small camouflage tents around the back.
The tents are set up as cover for laser tag matches. For now, there are a bunch of tents for participants to hide behind during a game, but Caouette said he plans on adding more to that soon. After all, the place is still pretty new.
Bounce House Entertainment Center opened in late December. Caouette, owner of VI Party Rentals, already had the big inflatable water slides for sale as part of his rental business, which he got into after working for Comcast for a little while with somebody who was looking to sell the aforementioned bounce houses.
Next thing you know, this former chef, former Comcast door-to-door salesman was running a party company.

“It’s funny how the company has come together,” he said.
If you stopped by the mall during the mayhem that was Christmas shopping season, you might have noticed Caouette’s other store, Village Idiotz, right across the hall from the new bounce house wholesale center. That store was a seasonal retail shop that sold ornaments and decorations, and it’s closed now but will be back next holiday season, Caouette said.
Village Idiotz, huh? Kind of a weird name, right? Where does someone come up with something like that for the name of their business?
“I started off selling Department 56 villages” at a kiosk in the mall two years ago, Caouette said. Then one day, “I came home from New Jersey with a bunch of village houses, and my wife said, ‘You are the village idiot.’ ”
And so a very un-idiotic business was born.
How it works is you just show up, pay $10 to bounce house combos for sale  all day and have at it. Laser tag sessions are available for $10 (15 minutes), $15 (30 minutes) or $25 (one hour), and birthday parties and monthly subscriptions are also available.
If all that running and bouncing off the walls makes you thirsty, you can grab a Coke product right by the front desk. If you get hungry, there will be some chips for sale, too. But Caouette has bigger things in mind on that front.
“The hope is that there’s going to be a pizza place that opens,” he said. “Once I start recouping some of my money, if nobody’s moved into the mall for pizza, I’m going to open it – I used to be a chef.”
Seems like there’s really no limit to what Caouette can do.
Speaking of no limits, that’s the current age policy in place. Whether you’re 3, 12 or 58, there’s something for you to jump on.
“We’re letting everyone come in and play,” Caouette said, and he wasn’t lying. During a stop last week, the place was packed with little kids and their parents, and the parents weren’t shy about climbing inside to try things out – how often do you get to jump around in one of those things, as a parent, without having to drop a few hundred to rent one for the day? Now you can,
Caouette does ask, however, that people just be courteous and respectful.
“If you are an older kid and the younger kids want to play, let the younger kids play on it,” he said. “We’re going to have somebody monitoring that anyway.”
There will be at least two staffers working at all times, Caouette said, with one working the front counter and another patrolling the play area making sure everything is clean and safe. He’s also there all the time, setting things up and making it more like the place he wants.

He’s been showing up extra early in the morning every day lately laying down and securing more Astroturf. As of last week, the floor was about 65 percent covered in the turf, with the rest of it still the classic Old Navy concrete. But with all these kids running around, concrete really isn’t the best surface, so more turf it is. Click this page.
There are also many more bouncy units that will be going up very shortly. In fact, there’s a good chance that by the time you read this, the place has already doubled in the number of entertainment units inside. It’s tough to keep up with their pace – especially for a weekly paper!
So what about the dollars and cents? The elephant in the room here is that new stores in that mall have not had the best luck, and this is undeniably a novel type of business. Plus, that Old Navy storefront is not exactly tiny, so there must be some significant overhead. And at only $10 per admission, it might be a struggle to stay afloat, one would imagine.
Apparently, it hasn’t been that hard for Caouette, the jack of all trades that he is.
“The way it’s going right now, we’re very pleased,” he said. “I’m already at least paying my costs, which is nice. Looks like I won’t lose as much money right off the bat as I planned.”
And unlike Village Idiotz, which was always going to be a seasonal shop, Bounce House Entertainment Center looks to stick around for the long haul.
“I have a 15-month lease, so we are going to be here for quite some time,” Caouette said. “The plan is to keep the rental company up and running as well as this.”
Caouette also said he’s eager to work with charities or schools. If some group wants to have a party there, he’ll split all the costs with whichever group that might be.
“I’ve always been customer-oriented,” he said. “I try to listen to their concerns and deal with their concerns instead of shrugging them off.”