ESScape Room - "The Real Kitchen Nightmare"

Cici Cao

Aug 17, 20193 min read

Updated: Apr 16, 2024

LOCATION:  Queens, NYC, New York, USA

Video property of ESCAPETHEROOMers

📝 ETR DECODER

🔑 GAME: The Real Kitchen Nightmare
📅 DATE PLAYED: August 17, 2019
🎬 GENRE: Horror
🧠 DIFFICULTY (Based on 2 ppl): 9/10
👥 TOTAL # OF PLAYERS: Up To 6ppl
🕒 LENGTH OF TIME: 60 Mins.
💰 PRICE: $30-50/pp (pending on group size)
☎️ BOOKING TYPE: Private
🔓 ESCAPED/ COMPLETED?: No

We are very excited to visit this new escape room location right in the heart of Long Island City, NY! The owners are a very talented escape room enthusiasts couple who’s been on the set of the "SAW" franchise production and some of the "Cirque Du Soleil" acts. They are now utilizing their many years in the restaurant business to create this kitchen horror-themed escape room.

We arrived at what looked like an apt complex entrance and were led down to the basement. There’s not much of a lobby but the set up is quite interesting. To the left side you have a music school where one of the talented owners still teaches her students and to the right you have the newly built escape room - "The Real Kitchen Nightmare".

You really couldn’t sense much of the theme when you are out in the lobby area but once you enter into the waiting area, you’re transported to a different world. The storyline combined with the authentic acting intro tells a daunting story about an angry chef. The props are as REAL as it can get. We definitely got a little “challenge” from one puzzle in there due to how authentic it was. You are in a real kitchen and the clues were all relevant to its theme. The only issue we had at the time of beta testing was that there were too many props and it could be a bit overwhelming to detect what is to be used and what is just for decor. Perhaps that’s why their escape room rate is still at 0% at this point. We think with less props or more identifiable, the flow of the puzzles will be a lot clearer. We went with just the two of us and there was a lot to do. Being enthusiasts themselves, they have seen a lot of what’s out there and “easy” is definitely not what they want to go for here. With a larger group, this room is definitely doable as there’s a lot of puzzles you can solve simultaneously. The set design was amazing from beginning to end. We liked how as the story developed, the lighting and sound went along really well from room to room. Although there’s not a real live actor in the room, the theme felt so eerie and the layout of the room was very intricately designed that you can “jump” scare yourself from time to time. We wonder if the use of smell could be incorporated to make it feel even more “kitchen-ish”. All in all, this was an amazing experience. We think that by tweaking the puzzle flow and unnecessary prop usage, it deserves a spot on our top-rated room list. We can’t wait to see what these two creative minds have coming up in the future!

** UPDATE - We regret to inform that "ESScape" has closed its doors.

Disclosure: We thank ESScape for inviting us to be their beta testers for the game. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.