The floor — and the fun — is lava for this Lexington amusement center
A rainy-day pastime now is family fun at a new business in Lexington.
What started as a way for kids to pass the time indoors on rainy days has now become a fun spot for the whole family at LavaQuest.
Open since March, the interactive gaming experience store offers birthday parties and group activities featuring a challenging lava floor installed in a large room, large enough for groups to compete against one another.
It’s based on the Floor is Lava, a household game that started out in suburban living rooms, where kids would try to avoid touching the floor by jumping on furniture and other items to move around.
The first mention of the game appears in Roald Dahl’s 1953 children’s short story, where he describes a boy who can walk only on parts of his mother’s carpet because of the venomous snakes in the pattern. And in the age of memes, the saying “the floor is lava” equates with the obstacles of life.
The intention of LavaQuest is not so deep. It’s a place for families, friends, or work groups to compete in a variety of configurations. Business is booming, with birthday parties, work outings, and other activities that give people a break from their daily lives.
Rob Gauthier owns and operates the business, which is adjacent to Kratopia, operated by his wife, Virginia. Gauthier is a New York transplant whose retail experience brought him to South Carolina, where he met Virginia and settled down in the Midlands. The move also brought out his entrepreneurial instinct to fulfill a need for indoor group fun that wasn’t just confined to young children.
With a blended family that includes a teenager and a toddler, Gauthier was looking to build something that would be fun for the whole family. “This concept is great because it’s active. It’s like a video game for kids. Keep them active. Keep them running around. And it can be done by people of all ages,” he said.
Gauthier also is tech-minded, so the idea of having a business that relied on technology was attractive. The interactive floor used at LavaQuest can be programmed for a variety of games. “I’ve always tried to create my own games anyway, and so I turned a hobby and a passion into an actual business venture,” he said.
The floor looks like a disco dance platform. And each square can be programmed to a certain color. Red means lava, but other pressure-sensitive tiles can be blue, green, or pink.
Games include Target Quest, Lava Crossing, Pattern Memory, and Survival. The key is to avoid the red (lava) tiles while scoring points on the others. Hit all your targets, and you move onto the next level. Hit a red square, and you lose your virtual life. More lives lost, and you must restart the level.
The games are hard or easy, depending on which level you’re on. And Gauthier can reprogram the games to create new challenges for his customers.
With the addition of leaderboards, regulars to the amusement center can compete with one another. A waiting room for groups has a PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo, along with board games, to keep people busy while they’re waiting their turn.
Family groups, work groups, and people celebrating birthdays are all taking advantage of its location to have fun for 30 minutes. “One of the things I hear the most is ‘It’s a great workout!’ People go in, they have a blast for 30 minutes, and they come out sweating. Big cardio, a lot of jumping, a lot of running around, all by just having fun playing the game,” Gauthier said.
It’s also fun to see how the business itself helps balance work and family for all of them. “It helps keep my daughter active. She’s four now, and she’s grown up on the floor, and so she’s one of the best players on it. Her hand-eye coordination has really improved. And she keeps me active because she wants me to play in there all the time with her.”
LavaQuest
5140 Sunset Blvd
Lexington, SC
(803) 490-3327