What it is
AXT is an axe-throwing venue brand. It opened in October 2018 in the rear suite of an industrial building on Placentia Avenue in Costa Mesa, the space Fowler's design-build company, Tellus, already used, behind a front tenant that repaired cars. It was the first axe-throwing venue in Southern California.
Costa Mesa's land use code had no line for indoor axe throwing. The use was not prohibited and not permitted, just absent, so there was no license to apply for and no local precedent a planner could cite.
What Common Ground did
- Fowler read the code on the building first and found the use unlisted, which meant a discretionary conditional use permit that issues only on written findings of fact.
- Rather than file an application built on an analogy to an archery range or a bowling alley, he opened the venue: eight lanes and a lounge, reservation-only sessions for adults, a signed waiver, an instructor on every pair of lanes and National Axe Throwing Federation rules, with private groups and parties first.
- The AXT word mark and logo were filed with the USPTO across events, leagues, apparel, lessons, mobile rentals and venue operation, and were allowed in March 2019. The room was the proof; the brand was the asset.
- When a neighbor's noise complaint opened a code enforcement case in November 2018, the venue closed in January 2019 and the operating record became the application, filed June 12, 2019. Holding that line cost four and a half months of trading and then ten months dark, with rent paid on a closed room and a crew of twelve Fowler meant to bring back.
- The packet was built the way city staff write findings: under each required finding went a fact from the running venue and the condition that made it writable, including hours set around the neighboring shop, a valet, a gap between sessions, no alcohol and an early close.
- Fowler went to the hearing himself. Staff recommended approval, and Costa Mesa's Planning Commission approved Planning Application 19-18 on November 14, 2019, three votes to two, with the chair among the noes.
- The suite was retrofitted to the permit's conditions for a March 2020 reopening. A buyer out of Riverside wanted the brand, the concept, every unit, the equipment and the website, and terms were agreed by handshake on a Friday that March. The COVID shutdown began the following Monday and killed the close.
- In January 2020 Fowler built the plan for the reopening year from the four months of actuals: $454,835 of sales and $93,994 of net, a 20.7 percent margin. The soft opening had run at 59 percent of the sales pace the plan required and 67 percent of the net pace, at a 23.7 percent margin, which said any correction was a demand problem, not a cost problem.
- AXT continues today as a current Common Ground Ventures engagement and a long-term position, treated as a long-term play rather than a sale to be timed. The asset was never the permit or the address; it was the brand, the concept and the method.
Results
- $88,998.95 in sales and $21,072.85 net in the first four months of trading, October 2018 to January 2019. Small groups, large groups and private events were nine of every ten dollars.
- Costa Mesa's first conditional use permit for indoor axe throwing, approved November 14, 2019, on a three to two vote.
- The AXT word mark and logo, allowed by the USPTO in March 2019.
- A handshake sale of the brand, concept, units, equipment and website to a Riverside buyer on the Friday before the COVID shutdown; the shutdown killed the close, and AXT remains a long-term position.
- The Daily Pilot covered the opening in September 2018.
- A findings-first packet method Fowler still uses: learn which findings the body must adopt, supply a fact from operations under each, write the conditions yourself, then show up.
External links
- Public data room: AXT Axe Haus data room
Public record
- AXT Throwing on Yelp
- Daily Pilot, September 20, 2018: New Costa Mesa venue has an ax to throw (Internet Archive)
- AXT on Facebook
- AXT on Instagram
- AXT Axe Throwing on Tripadvisor
Stories from this work
A vote is an opinion; a review is an analysisIn July 2026 an FDA advisory committee recommended six peptides for the 503A bulks list.Standing on principle
Permitting a category that did not exist yetI wanted to open Southern California's first axe-throwing venue, in a Costa Mesa warehouse I already had, but the city's use code had never contemplated the category.Insider truth
Origin: AXT / Axe HausI had a warehouse in Costa Mesa sitting underused, and axe throwing was catching on in other cities with nothing like it in Southern California yet.Pivot
At a glance
| Project type | Venue launch, entitlement strategy and a long-term position |
|---|---|
| Industry | Hospitality and entertainment venues |
| Seat | Owner and operator, now a long-term position |
| Ran through | Three Trails LLC, now Common Ground Ventures |
| Dates | 2018 to present |
| Duration | Eight years and ongoing |
| Location | Costa Mesa, California |
| Public data room | AXT Axe Haus data room |
| Related pages | Common Ground, Jesse Fowler |
| Credit | Created by Common Ground |