Cocktail bar with shooting range opens in Brussels

A new cocktail bar in Brussels has opened with a unique feature - a shooting range.

Shooters claims to be the only cocktail bar of its kind in the world, sporting 10 shooting lanes and a range of packages for different in-house experiences.

The twist is that it is completely safe. Shooters provides authentic replicas of firearms to create a risk-free immersive shooting bar. Customers can use airsoft gun facsimiles to fire safe 5mm plastic rounds at massive interactive screens, choosing from three different settings for their game.

Game options include a training range with simple green targets, a virtual bar where shooting at realistic bottles is the challenge, and a playground that imitates clay-shooting with animated ducks.

The entrepreneurs behind the bar stress the influence of nostalgia on their design. On social media, Romain Félix described his childhood of playing shooting arcade games with Julien Vandenitte.

"Those moments of pure, competitive joy stuck with me," he wrote.

"But it was sad to see that over all those years, the technology didn't really evolve. So we did what every kid would do... Two years of secret engineering later, we made it ourselves."

Félix and Vandenitte’s design comprises a proprietary tracking system that can detect real airsoft projectiles flying at 120m/s with perfect accuracy.

The result is an immersive entertainment experience ideal for a date, friends’ night out, or corporate team-building activity.

Reservations have opened this week for one-hour sessions at the bar, which can be found on Rue Antoine Dansaert in the city centre.