Growing up, parents talk all the time about how their Friday’s after school were spent at the roller skating rink with their friends until closing time. Those were their hang out spots. However, that was also around thirty years ago, when diners were the only other place to hang out with friends if they wanted out of the house.

Now, teens have tons of places to go and hangout with their friends. The list of places range from peaceful coffee shops to loud, energetic amusement parks. Through interviews with some SHS students, we, The Journal, have been able to rank the top hangout spots around the SHS community today.

• The Mocha Nut

The Mocha Nut Coffee Shop is the first on this list. It’s a serene environment that offers a variety of beverages and pasteriesfor their customers. It also provides a place for students to relax with their friends after a long day at school. 

“It’s a place where you can calm down,” sophomore Savannah Shumaker said. “You can sit there, you can study, you can drink some bomb coffee and eat some really good baked goods … It’s just a great place to make some memories.”

• Greenwood Park Mall

Coming in at number two, the mall offers a diverse list of activities. Sitting in the food court talking with friends, shopping or paying a visit to the stores around the mall are just some on a list of plenty. The mall has been around since 1967, around the time when most of our grandparents would have been teenagers. With the amount of history the mall holds, one can never go wrong there.

“You can go around and look at stuff and obviously buy stuff, but you know, it’s a really chill place,” freshman Eli Thomas said. 

• BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse

BJ’s is a chill environment to chat and have a good time. It’s similar to The Mocha Nut, but BJs is more meant for just eating and hanging out rather than being a quiet place to study. This is number three on the rankings because BJs is at the mall. It’s just its own restaurant near the front without any entrances into the mall itself. 

“The atmosphere and the people who work there are so nice and it’s so close to the mall so when you’re done, if you want to go shopping then go for it,” junior Grayson Meece said. “That’s usually where we go after shows. We’re so tired. We just go there to get a pizookie … It just makes all the stress of the show just go away.”

• Foam Warriorz

Foam Warriorz is an indoor foam combat, axe throwing, arcade fun park. They offer a variety of games, including nerf gun wars and more. It’s a very active and fun environment that’s different from the rest of the places on this list. It’s a place meant to have fun and be lively with friends rather than sitting and having a conversation.This is ranked as number four on the list because it’s something that just opened and doesn’t have the same publicity as the other hangout spots.

“Back when I was a kid, me and my brother would always make our homemade nerf battles,” junior Grant Lizon said. “But Foam Warriorz was like a step up … There isn’t very many places like that around and the fact that there isn’t that many around is what I think makes it special.”

• Suds

Suds is a place where people take their old cars to show them off and a location where teenagers spend their summer vacations hanging out at. Looking at the cars, eating food and socializing with people from all over the state are a few of the things that draw people to hangout there. Suds is ranked as number five because it’s also not a very well known place. People either know about it or they don’t. There is no in between. 

“We just talk and conversate about anything related to a car and it’s just a nice hang out spot,” sophomore Meredith Ziegler said. “There are some people who don’t know anything about cars and there are some people who want to know everything about cars … It’s just fun and enjoyable.

There are so many more places that teens have to be able to hang out at, and these five are what we believed to be the best options for SHS students.