Memphis Rox

This was my first time being invited to a YES! party, and my first time rock climbing. I had so much fun!Memphis Rox is in the neighborhood with Stax Museum at McLemore Ave. There is parking behind the building. The area is very spacious, clean, and well organized from supplies to pricing. There is a waiver to sign before beginning, and can be completed online or in person.The employees are very approachable and helpful. They guide you through the space, explain the layout, and are very welcoming to first timers. There are the assorted walls, but also a gym, yoga area, boxing area, and juice bar. side note: restrooms passed. They are clean, and there's a shower with towels available. There are lockers on the wall for personal belongings. There are also lockers near the bathrooms, but you'll need your own lock for those.There are several walls for varying levels of experience. Each area is cushioned, so if you do fall, you won't be hitting concrete. We changed into rock climbing shoes. You wear one size up from your normal shoe size. We had the choice of either free climbing the smaller walls or lessons in the back. The instructor was with us while he explained the smaller walls and you, for lack of better term, climb by color. A lot of us climbed the free walls.I went with the lesson on the back wall. Our instructor was awesome! With 10 first timers, he did an excellent job. I learned how to do a 10 point knot several times, and how to put on climbing gear. You do it over and over, but it makes perfect sense because you're preparing to do it independently.It ended up being three of us. This training definitely takes trust, because you learn how to tie yourself to climb, but you're also dependent on your partner to help you down the wall. The climb was so much fun! I almost got to the top of the wall. We alternated climbing up and guiding our partner down, and then we got our certification for completing the lesson.The last part of the party was food. I had the turkey burger, and it was REALLY good. It was tender and well seasoned. The berry smoothie was also really good.I'll give this one a rating: new climbs and good times. I had an awesome time here, and it was fun meeting new people and always fun trying new things. Definitely check this place out.

I'm back with an update. I still love this gym, but I feel like the quality is going down. The cafeteria never seems open anymore, and the coffee bar isn't stocked. The downside of the staff being chill is that they don't enforce safety, and it's quite stressful having children run below you or kids throwing footballs on the mats, right in front of the front desk. The women's bathroom has been out of paper towels the last two times I've been here. It's not the end of the world, but I'm definitely seeing a decrease in quality in the two years I've been coming here.

Really enjoyed my visit to Memphis Rox! Staff was very nice and knowledgeable when it came rock climbing . I didn't a chance to fully climb but I did learn how to use the harness for our next visit . The food was amazing everything was WELL seasoned and fresh.

Very adventurous place for agile, athletic folks and those that are young at heart. There are so many exercise machines and equipment that excited me. There's a room for Yoga, meditation and much more. The staff was amazing with explaining everything about the facility. The vegan menu and foods were amazing and absolutely delicious.

Nothing but love for my first experience at Memphis Rox! I was recommended here by a friend and long time member to add some variation to my workout routine. I have to say, bouldering is much more challenging than I expected! Still, even though I stayed on the "easy" level climbs, I still felt challenged and had a lot of fun. The community seemed casual and social and I enjoyed seeing adults as well as children taking part in casual, active, and technique based climbs. Memphis Rox is a non profit so you can feel good about purchasing a membership, but they still help you out with inexpensive deals, free lockers, and cheap rentals. My only criticism is that not all the climbs were labeled, so it took some time to find all the ones at my skill level, but I was lucky to have a friend who could help me. I recommend trying this out! It is a great time and my arms were SO SORE the next day I felt confident I had gotten in a efficient workout too!

Memphis Rox is a cool place in a hard community, visitors have the opportunity to experience numerous climb walls to test and strengthen their upper and lower body strength. There are walls for all fitness levels and ages. The staff was nice, very soft spoken but kind. I attended with a large group and they seemed to struggle to communicate with us so that everyone could hear and a part of our visit was to try their food and juice/smoothie bar. Again it appeared our group size was a challenge for the staff, we preordered food and they ran out of multiple items and others it appeared they advertised, but did not have. I have heard about this space a lot over the years, I do like that visitors can pay what they can, that's especially important in the 38126 neighborhood. There were many who appeared to not be from the 38126 community in the space.

Have never been climbing. The employees were really nice and helpful. I was certified to belay for the family within 30 minutes because of the quality of training. We enjoyed the overall facility and the atmosphere of the place. 45' tall walls were quite a fun challenge.

Memphis Rox is a great climbing gym. I am a novice climber and I dropped by with some time to kill on a work trip to Memphis. Everything about the bouldering was great! That one salty reviewer is totally wrong. The staff were super nice and helped me figure out the climbing shoe situation. The gym was well maintained. It was totally empty on Friday morning. There were great routes for beginners and experts. They also have a nice gym facility upstairs. My climbing gym in Houston charges twice this. AND Memphis Rox gives a student discount. It's a fantastic way to spend a few hours.

Visited with a friend, who let me use her guest pass to get in. Shoe rental is only $1. I don't think they have chalk rentals, but I just used my friend's. We had a great time climbing, and the staff were really friendly! My one negative point about Memphis Rox is that their routes are not graded visibly - they use the Kaya app to label their grades. I understand this promotes exploration, and I could generally guess the grades by looking at or trying out a route, but I was still curious about the grades before trying them and would prefer not to have to open an app to verify. But that's a minor point, and we still had a great time climbing! Plenty of parking spaces outside, and the restrooms and showers are clean!

I like that Memphis Rox is a non-profit and they have a lot of community classes and stuff. It's an amazing resource to the community, no doubt. There is different pricing for whatever kind of schedule you're looking to invest in, but they won't turn anyone away for lack of ability to pay. That's great because it has the potential to expose a lot of people to something they wouldn't otherwise do. They also have different classes like boxing, dance, yoga and other fitness machines, etc. The facility is clean enough, smells a little gym-like which is what it is... people sweat in there a lot. OK that's where my praise ends. This is a 3 star because I really just found it to be A-OK all in all. The gentleman at the front desk was sorely lacking in customer service skills. I don't think he looked up at me once and was very short with me, almost as if it was an inconvenience for him to help me get set up to use the facility. The other negative for me is they do not have auto belays. They said it was because they want the volunteers to interact with people. While that makes sense, some people just want to climb and don't have that experience or training - or trust. I'm one of those people and didn't really enjoy myself there because I was stuck on the boulders and that isn't my strong suit. Oh well...