Escape Room LA

Had a work team even here and has a blast! Love the staff, and the creativity at this place!

So much fun! This was my first escape room experience and I gotta say it makes me want to do more :)
I booked an entire room for a Saturday. Weekends (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) is $ 35 per person, and weekdays are $ 30. You don’t have to have max people playing if you book a room, but you do have to pay for that number of people. Book in advanced if you’re looking at a weekend! Also, I booked for The Detective. This room is considered the hardest room. It has a very low escape rate but its most definitely fun with good company. I can only imagine how different it would be with complete strangers: O
PARKING:
As of January 2016, the parking lot next to the venue was $ 8 flat rate and not $ 6 as mentioned in previous reviews.
AFTER:
Plenty of bars and gastropubs around the area for you to walk to! Never a dull moment in this part of LA.

My friends and I have done two of the rooms so far — The Detective and one of the newest ones, The Alchemist.
We escaped both times, and found each room to be a lot of fun. The Detective had more challenging puzzles, but the Alchemist had really cool physical aspects in terms of how you interacted with the room to get the next items you need (there were audible gasps from our group every time we unlocked another element!). I would highly recommend either of these rooms, and we intend to check out the other rooms as well.
Parking is really easy — there are several lots with flat fees located near the building. As stated, it’s on the 3^rd floor of a not-​very-​impressive building, but once inside, the theme of the rooms is great, and all of the staff is super friendly!
We’ve only played with our own group, so I can’t speak to playing with strangers thrown in the mix, but you for sure want to make sure that you have good communication. You also want to make sure you have a bit of a mix of skill-​sets, so that people can focus on different puzzles at the same time. Being organized is also a key factor in escaping in time — make sure you know what pieces go with what puzzle and what you’ve already solved.
I love that they have a person in costume to match the theme in the room who is generally pretty hands-​off, but definitely lets you know if you’re on the wrong track so that you don’t waste too much time. It’s also great that they explain how all the puzzles work together to get you the solution — it’s a nice little recap if you were successful, and helpful to know the path to follow to the end if you ran short on time.
These rooms are well thought-​out and tons of fun. Can’t wait to do another!

We almost had it! Just needed another 10 mins and we would have escaped! It was my first time doing it and I loved it! it’s awesome to see a mix of strangers and friends band together and help each other out to solve the mystery of the room. We got the cavern room and they said that it has a 12% escape rate?! We don’t get to pick the room but it’s still pretty cool. Would like to come back and do all the rooms!

Really fun group activity for fun or a special occasion! We chose The Cavern and it was definitely tough.
There’s a parking lot right next to the building — $ 6 flat. There are instructions to get into the building on top of the intercom/​directory. When arriving, it’s best if your whole party can arrive a bit before because the room starts right on time. Because we purchased the entire room, we were able to bring 2 babies in with us. The whole experience was about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Use the bathroom beforehand because there are no ins and outs once you start.
We had the best room host who helped us along when we got stuck. We didn’t finish, but at the end, there’s an explanation of how to complete each of the challenges.
We would definitely go again and try another one of the rooms!

Challenging and a lot of fun!
My friends and I did The Detective room on NYE. We didn’t solve all the puzzles but still had a great time that was challenging. I’m a huge fan of puzzle rooms and Escape Room is my favorite place to go. Their location in Little Tokyo is also great.
Will definitely be coming back here!

So I begged my friends to come with me for my birthday. They were skeptical about an Escape room experience– I chose the Detective which is more methodical than it is scary. Up until we sat in the waiting room, they were dreading it but when we met our group (there were three separate ones) everyone’s mindset changed. We were all excited to see what was in store for us. The hosts were very nice and explained the rules very well, and the Accountant who was trapped inside with us was great. The puzzles at the time were so mind boggling and the attention to detail was spot on. Unfortunately we didn’t escape, we solved 22 out of 25 puzzles I believe. We were so close! But Overall I’m very satisfied with the experience. We’ve already made plans for the Theatre and the Alchemist.

SO MUCH FUN!!!
I booked online for myself and a group of 7 friends for the Detective room, so we were paired with 4 other people we had never met.
The rooms are incredibly well thought out and I can’t bagin to imagine the thought that goes into something as involved as the mysteries they present! For $ 30 dollars for an hour per person it’s a little expensive, but all of us definitely left the room feeling very fulfilled. The staff is great, very friendly and do a great job of setting the scene!
It’s a little confusing to find as it’s on the third floor of a building, which isn’t clearly stated on the website so it took us a while to find. However, there is parking literally right next door which is also a massive plus.
Five stars from me – definitely going back again :)

Heard a lot of hype around Escape Room both on the East Coast and West so was fairly excited going in. When I got there, was a little less than impressed. Was in a quiet, random building in DTLA that looked a little dilapidated. The waiting room was pretty barebones as well. However, once things got going, the rest didn’t matter as the game itself was a ton of fun so if anything, the location just helps keep costs/​prices down.
I went with a group of people (they may combine groups depending on the number of people). In an hour, there are something around 25 puzzles/​clues to solve to escape the room. Involves piecing information together, thinking creatively, connecting the dots, and making obscure observations. Some require a lot of time. When you get really stuck, there’s a staffmember in the room with you to provide some subtle hints (s/​he is there to give the final review at the end to let you know what you missed).
Overall, a really fun time together. Protip: communicate (say things out loud that you spot or need as someone else may have come across something relevant), if something looks interesting/​like a clue, it may very well be one, and have fun!

Do not do it with people you don’t know!!! I would seriously recommend doing a room with ONLY your people you know, your own group or buying the room out. We went and were in with a family twice our size. They monopolized all the clues, didn’t share and took clue items to hoard over by themselves without including or sharing with us. It was a drag! Even though we solved a few ourselves and got out in time, when one of their kids grabbed a clue out of my husbands hands and ran over to mommy with it, we knew we had wasted our money.
Bad experience.

Had the extreme pleasure of taking on the Alchemist escape room with 8 friends as part of a birthday event. This was my first time doing something like this and it was very well executed. They have done an excellent job of putting together an experience that is challenging and fun. The hour flew by and, while we didn’t escape the room in time, we left with a tremendous sense of achievement. Will definitely come back again for more challenges! This is a fantastic experience and I highly recommend giving Escape Room LA a chance to thrill and excite you!

These guys are doing it right. I’ve played two of their rooms so far, and hope to play another in the future. I brought a group for The Detective back in April for my birthday and we had a great time. It was very challenging and we definitely needed all 12 of us to escape. But I liked that skin of our teeth feeling. It was well decorated and the puzzles were creative, for the most part. A couple of them were a little by the book, but given how many they gave us, I’m okay with that.
A couple weeks ago I went back to try one of their new rooms, The Theater. I liked this game better in one way — it felt like they did some cool creative stuff with the theme — but liked it less in another way: it was too easy. We blew through it in nearly record time. At no point did I feel like we were in danger of failing, and without that adrenaline, it’s not quite as fun. I wish they had put a bit more content in, but then they may have received opposite complaints about the Detective. I did appreciate the rundown of the puzzles afterward since we didn’t get that for the Detective, but maybe we just got that because we had 20 minutes to kill.
Theater gets 4 stars, Detective gets 5.

This is AWESOME SAUCE.
I’d heard about Escape Room LA and didn’t know what to expect. I imagined that I’d be put in some dimly lit room with walls closing in on me, threatening to crush me as I sought to solve mind-​bending or physically challenging puzzles.
I don’t want to give too much away. We attended as a team building experience at work so we had 12 people of our own to work through the puzzles awaiting us in the Theater Room.
I tend to like all sorts of brain puzzles especially word games like Scrabble, Boggle, and Scramble with Friends. This Escape Room LA is different than all that and one of the most intriguing things (at least for the Theater room we were in) was that you don’t really need to bring any external knowledge into the room although hidden or inobtrusive all the clues you need for the wide variety of challenges are in the room with you.
I encourage you to try this unique, collaborative puzzle of a room yourself. About 40% of teams solve the Theater Room. So I wonder what The Detective room would be like which has a 10% success rate.

We didn’t make it out, but my team is relatively new. Overall this is a great place for a team building event. Personally I would have preferred something more active like laser tag where we could truly release some stress… but not all of us are in the same shape, so my admin reccomended and booked this place. The staff and service was great

My friend, Harmonie T. hosted a group event with a bunch of friends and we escaped The Detective! We were the 107^th group out of 1086 groups that made it out of the room and we used every second of the 60 minutes! My friend, who said he used to work there, said that one was really challenging. I cannot believe we made it out! It’s best to go with a group of people with some degree of separation instead of going in with complete strangers (though it could also work). Everyone has their talents: some are good at solving puzzles, some at math problems, some are good at finding things, some recognize patterns, some are good at connecting, etc., so there’s a chance for everyone to shine in some way.

We. Kick. Ass!
We played The Detective and with zero seconds to spare, we escaped. ZERO SECONDS! Turned the key to the final lock just in time! The success rate of this game is 10%. We played game #1086 and we’re the 107^th group to succeed :)
I’m just gonna say it again: We kick ass!!!
We were locked in a detective’s office for an hour. Trapped in a 1940’s film noir solving the mystery.
I have smart friends :) The BF knows some smart people too. I figured out a puzzle or two and found my share of clues as well. My personal strategy, if three people were already working on something, let them figure it out and search for something else to solve. It helped that we had a group of 11 because there was A LOT of things to figure out. We tried to stay spread out, break up into smaller groups working on separate puzzles, but also communicated with the whole group often.
This was my first escape room and I’m definitely gonna do other games. I think everyone in our group is hooked too. This was a lot of fun!
Other helpful notes:
— Escape Room is located on the 3^rd floor of a big pink building on 8^th and Los Angeles
— I thought street parking meters would be free on a sunday but they weren’t
— $ 5 all day parking (on sunday) two blocks away on Spring and 8^th

Another review for this business and to talk about their room The Cavern! We escaped but barely! Our safety engineer did help us with a few helpful hints but I don’t think they were too of a stretch. Comparing this to The Detective. It’s a bit more chaotic as there are clues everywhere and the room is smaller. At first, I was a bit overwhelmed with everything, but we have a good group and were able to solve everything in the end.
It’s a 50 minute long activity. I thought it was an hour but I guess I was wrong. No matter. Our safety engineer Chris was awesome and our host did a fantastic job explaining the game.
The Cavern is definitely challenging. Using all of wit, logic, and observation equally!

YES! Another fun, challenging, mystery-​themed race in the books. The Escape Room is run by the folks behind the LA Race, whose other events I haven’t tried yet — but this makes me want to!
It’s a one-​hour activity in which you have to solve a number of riddles & puzzles in order to find your way out of a locked room. Their escape rate is very low, and our group got the «Almost» award as we were literally within 30 seconds of unlocking the box that contained the final key when time elapsed. But it was a great journey, and an hour goes by fast. This event counts on your ability to collaborate as a team (even with people you’ve only just met), communicate clearly, and put your heads together — it really takes the full participation of the entire group (we had 9) for the duration of the hour to complete the challenge.
They already have expansion plans in the works — and with two more Rooms coming (in addition to the two that they currently have) I’ll definitely have reasons to come back to do this. It’s easily worth the price of admission, and there are a couple of great eateries & bars within walking distance for you to either revel in your victory, or take the edge off your defeat afterwards!

I’ve done them both, dear Unilocalers! Of the two I much preferred The Detective. Without spoiling any details, I had a hard time understanding what the objectives of The Cavern puzzles were, let alone how they related to each other. Also, in The Cavern you have to solve a puzzle before you can get into the rest of the room, which tripped our group up. I’d much rather be given free range of the room from the get go, as is the case with The Detective. I’d say The Detective is more logic-​based, whereas The Cavern is all about finding objects and figuring out how they relate to each other.
If you haven’t done an escape room yet because you don’t have a big enough group and are shy about being paired with strangers, don’t be! We had a group of nine for The Detective and the three random people paired with us were great! Everyone worked well together and were able to communicate effectively – we wound up escaping with ten minutes to spare! (My attempt in The Cavern, however, was far less successful.)
Parking is street or a $ 7 lot a block and a half away. The rooms themselves are air conditioned but the hallway that you wait in before your time is NOT and can get quite stuffy, so dress accordingly. Comfy shoes are a must as well.
Also, the lovely Escape Room LA employees informed me that they’re working on building two new rooms, so look forward to even more mystery and mayhem in the future!

We were so close. SO CLOSE. It hurts to know how close we were.
What an exhilarating hour.
I booked the whole room out, but only had 8 people in it (3 people dropped out last minute). But to be honest, that was a really good number. Everyone stayed busy on a clue. SO much is happening. YOU HAVE to communicate. YOU MUST. Even if it feels silly to yell out what you know, see, find — do it, because it will mean something to someone else.
This isn’t a room that everything is so obvious or that everything means something.
It’s really well put together and we are def going to come back and do their other room.
I hope they create more because I can’t get enough.
Before we went in everyone was so hesitant. No one knew what we were in for or if it was going to be a total bust.
We talked about it all the way home and I was finding out about clues my friends solved that I had NO IDEA they did.
If you’re not solving a clue every 5 – 10 minutes you aren’t getting out. We solved 88% of it which is heart wrenching. 10 more mins and we would have gotten out!