Philly’s First Escape Room Dinner Party Puts Your Puzzle Skills to the Test

Scenes from the Escape Room Dinner Party / Photography courtesy of Eric The Puzzler

There’s an art to throwing a dinner party. You have to pick a crowd-pleasing menu, strategically seat your chattiest friends in the middle to keep the conversation flowing, and time things perfectly so you don’t skip a beat as the night reaches its crescendo: dessert. In many ways, it’s like putting together the pieces of a puzzle, or at least it is to experience designer Eric Dale, one of the masterminds behind Philly’s first Escape Room Dinner Party.

Since the early days of the pandemic, Dale, also known as Eric the Puzzler on Instagram, has been crafting riddles, scavenger hunts, and outdoor challenges for Philly’s puzzle enthusiasts. “I like trying to create things that you can’t really describe unless you’ve experienced them,” Dale explains.

One of his most popular games, The Keys to Philly, invites players on a free treasure hunt to search for hidden keys around the city. So far, 22 keys have been found by lucky winners who scored fun prizes like a pizza alignment poster from South Fellini and a LOVE statue candle donated by Philly Candles.

Recently, though, he’s decided to build a new kind of brain teaser centered around a dinner party. The objective of the game? Guests must work together to unlock dessert.

The idea came about earlier this year when Dale was invited to the Maker’s Table, a networking dinner party bringing together Philadelphia’s top tastemakers and creatives. There he met Alex Cahanap, the owner of Citrine, a boutique tablescape design and rental service. “We just started talking about what we do,” Cahanap recalls. “Before we knew it, we were brainstorming an escape room dinner party.”

The Escape Room Dinner Party — the first of which happened last month — is exactly as it sounds. It combines the social aspect of a dinner party with the mystery-solving thrill of an escape room. Upon arrival, guests are given a welcome drink and mingle before being corralled into Citrine’s studio space located at the Jasper House in Kensington. From there, the games begin.

I don’t want to give too much of the inner mechanics away, but what I can tell you is that everything is in play, so if you think it’s a clue, it probably is. And collaboration is encouraged. Even if you aren’t the best at anagrams or ciphers, chances are you’ll be seated at a table with a clever problem solver who knows a thing or two about cryptic clues. (Subscribers of the Puzzle Well get first dibs on these seats, after all.)

The face you’ll make when the puzzle finally clicks.

Now, I wouldn’t say I am an avid puzzler. I’ve only got about a 50 percent success rate with escape rooms. But I still love to play. I love combing through the details and connecting the dots between seemingly unrelated things. Though it’s exciting to discover a problem’s solution, I’m more interested in how these experiences are crafted. And this Escape Room Dinner Party is a masterfully crafted game where every conundrum leads to unexpected twists and turns that are guaranteed to delight and amuse.

The most impressive thing about this culinary caper is how neither the puzzle nor the food gets in the way of one another. An interactive experience as layered and complex as this one can easily get clunky, but the cadence of the meal — a hearty four-course meal prepared by chef Shelby Fahrni that features a fall-off-the-bone roast beef as the main course — syncs up perfectly with each step in the elaborate ruse they’ve developed. And you don’t have to worry about whether or not your team will figure out how to unlock dessert: There are some headscratchers, but nothing too challenging that you won’t be able to deduce the next clue. Plus, Eric the Puzzler will be there the whole time if you need an assist.

The next Escape Room Dinner Party will be Saturday, March 1st, at Citrine in Jasper House, located at 1825 East Boston Street. Tickets go for $195 and are available here. You can bring a buddy or go alone — either way you’ll make new friends all while cracking the code to dessert.

Editors note: There’s a secret message hidden in this article for those of you who are bold enough to solve it.