Valhalla Indoor Axe Throwing plans move to Westmoreland Mall

A new ax throwing site will replace the former Payless ShoeSource store in Westmoreland Mall.

Valhalla Indoor Axe Throwing plans to open early next year near the indoor entrance to Live! Casino Pittsburgh. The facility will be the second location for franchisee Jim Ristway, who also runs the company’s Hempfield location. He purchased it from the original owners last year.

“The main reason I wanted to expand into Westmoreland Mall is that seems to be the future trend of shopping malls,” said Ristway, 37, of Greensburg. “They are basically going to be becoming activity centers and with the casino coming in I thought it was a perfect opportunity to build on that mall’s expansion into that kind of territory.”

The company owned by Alicia Jenkins and Robert S. Jenkins Jr. has expanded with sites in Unity and Monroeville Mall. The first location opened in Hempfield in 2017.

The couple sold the Hempfield location to Ristway in November 2019.

The Jenkins also plan to open Kingsman Billiards, which includes activities like darts, shuffleboard, billiards, air hockey, poker and foosball, at Westmoreland Mall. The couple opened a Kingsman Billiards in Monroeville Mall last year.

The Westmoreland location, which is set to open next year, will take over the former Justice store.

While the ax throwing facilities are shuttered to comply with the state’s covid-19 restrictions that last through Jan. 4, Alicia Jenkins said the pandemic has given her and her husband time to focus on business growth opportunities.

“Our company is growing and we did plan to grow a lot more in 2020,” she said. “We did have to take some steps to just slow down and go with the pace of what the rest of the world is doing at this time. We are really excited to go into these malls, Westmoreland Mall in particular. We’re really excited about that location.”

Ristway, who formerly managed a New Stanton pharmacy, has a marketing degree from Saint Vincent College.

“This is probably the biggest risk I’ll be taking ever in a business setting,” he said. “But I just thought that the timing, obviously, for this entire year has been horrible, but it was kind of a gut feeling that I thought it was going to be a good idea.”

Ristway noted the business will be compliant with covid-19 protocols, adding that people have been grateful Valhalla has remained open as much as possible throughout the pandemic.

“People were looking for normalcy and we gave it to them as much as we could,” he said.