Boda Borg Opens in Malden in October

By: Emily DaPonta

        We sat down with the owner of the first Boda Borg in America, located on Pleasant Street in Malden, on Sunday October 11^th to discuss their business and its movement to the states. Boda Borg is a Swedish entertainment company, and the Malden location is the first to open in the United States. 

A view of the inside of Boda Borg's "The Jungle" Quest.

Photo taken by: Emily DaPonta

        Boda Borg's website describes the new building at 90 Pleasant Street as a “real-world gaming environment.” People in groups of three to five choose a “quest” that they wish to do and, without any instruction, navigate through each room using clues.

        When you complete the quest you receive a stamp indicating you completed that challenge. Each quest is separated into sections labeled green red and black.

        The owner of Boda Borg, Chad Ellis, explained how each quest is categorized. “When we talk about green, red, and black it doesn’t talk about the difficulty of the quest. It just talks about how physically strenuous they are," he said. “So, green quests, which are the least physical quests, can still be extremely difficult. The red quests are intermediate physical because they involve a structure or climbing through a tunnel and the black quests can be quite physical all the way up to stuff that feels like it should be on ‘American Ninja Warrior.’”

Employee Zachary Senchuk
and Boda Borg owner Chad Ellis.

Photo taken by: Emily DaPonta

        We also asked why Boda Borg chose to have its first business in Boston out of every place in America.

“I suggested to the company that they should come to Boston because they have a great market for it,” Ellis said. “We’ve got lots of students here, lots of corporate team building, lots of families that want to do smart things with their kids and I just thought it would be a perfect fit for what Boda Borg was doing.”

        We also asked about the quests that are currently available to complete. On their website, there were only three shown, which were Alcatraz, Platoon, and Danca Pausa. But Ellis cleared this up, saying that there are actually about sixteen quests there currently, include Platoon, Alcatraz, Danca Pausa, Pirates, Spider, Spook House, Superbanan, Jungle, Tough Tougher Toughest, and many more.

        We also asked Ellis about the taco bar that they have at Boda Borg. Not only does it have 150 seats, but at noon they have a buffet for only $10 with free water. Ellis, when asked why they chose to incorporate a taco bar, responded, “That’s actually what they do in Sweden! Questers need something that is pretty quick that [makes] you really reenergize.”

        We also asked, what makes Questers want to come back once they have completed all of the Quests?

Ellis responded that some of the black quests will always be fun because of the challenge, but he also stated “We will change quests. We are adding three more over the next six months to a year.”

        Lastly, we asked what educational value does Boda Borg have that would potentially make schools interested in attending? “Kids need to learn persistence, team skills, they need to learn how to fail and be okay with failing, and they need to learn how to do creative problem solving and this does that in an incredibly fun activity,” Ellis said.