The Murder Mystery Company in Minneapolis

My fiancé had a Groupon and luckily they were gracious to allow her to redeem past the deadline. Well, Stillwater was close by so we went with it. We sat next to some other couples and opted not to get our photo taken. Afterwards, the host greeted us for check-​in. We were given cards for our dinner. I had the lasanga and she had the chicken. Service was good and there was a bar to get drinks. The bartender opened 2 ginger ales before telling me it was $ 1.50 per can. Oh well, not a huge deal and wanted something besides just water. Anyways, the mystery started with introductions and then getting a binder with our team name and goal/​objective. Our team met with the cast members with name tags. We were given play money to bribe the cast members. However, we realized later that these cast members were actually audience members like ourselves. Plus, they are just as new to this as us so I would have preferred someone like our host. Oh well, interrogation time was a joke since many of the cast members didn’t give us the complete details. Also, we ran around in circles trying to find the right ones. In the end, we thought it was worth to try out but not again. If this had smaller group and actually scenes to revisit, then we could piece together. Instead, we found out the ending which was a little lame. Oh well, we didn’t pay full price but perhaps the execution could have been done a bit better. Most of the script felt a little forced and not too impressed with how the ending turned out.

I didn’t realize how good this was until I went to a Dinner Detective show in Phoenix, which was awful. Murder Mystery Company had great acting, good story development, it was fun, suspenseful, and the host really carried the show. They let you come in costume, too, which was a lot of fun.

I purchased six tickets for the show on May 29^th with the Murder Mystery Company at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I had to email them a few days beforehand to get my follow-​up email so I could choose my dinners, although I think you can do it on the website. The 5 other guests and myself got dressed up and headed to dinner, we got there around 6:25pm, dinner was at 7pm. While we were waiting in line to pay for parking, somebody was talking to their friend inside and was saying the show was canceled. We waited to see if they were joking, a couple of us checked our email (we did not have any emails saying it was canceled) and they said their friend was not joking. A minute or so later, people came walking back from the Old Spaghetti Factory and said the actors had not shown up so there was no show tonight. I went inside and confirmed this myself, the OSF staff said they had not seen any of the actors tonight and could not get ahold of anyone.
I met up with the rest of my group, all of which had dressed up for this, along with several other people who were there and just as confused as us. We ultimately decided to stay and have dinner since it was not the OSF’s fault. They were obviously embarrassed for the unprofessionalism of the Murder Mystery Company and were extremely accommodating to our party. The food was good, the service was good and they saved our night.
I did call the Murder Mystery Company and request a refund, they first attempted to get me to reschedule, yeah right! I drove over an hour and dragged five other people out for this ridiculous excuse for a company, I had no reason to give them a second chance. Not to mention the man on the phone told me this had only happened once or twice before… Ridiculous.
They stated they would refund my money and I received an email stating I’m being refunded but as of today it has not registered to my account yet. I never received an apology or an explanation, what a waste. Save your time and money.

A fun, interactive night! The Murder Mystery Dinner is hosted in the Old Spaghetti Factory and offers a unique whodunit – you can be a suspect or even the one murdered… GASP!
Came in a group of 5, and we were seated in a large dining room that was well decorated with lots of old, antique-​y furnishings. Adults of all ages filled the room, ranging from those who came in their everyday clothes to those who were dressed to the nines in 1920’s Prohibition era costumes. As they would say in early silent films, I’ll «cut to the chase»: no one should come for the food. The show comes with a three-​course meal, but it shouldn’t be described as anything more than serviceable. If you can stomach that, the night should be plenty fun.
The characters and storyline are engaging, and it’s great to get out of your seat, walk around, and interrogate the various suspects. You work as a team with the rest of your table to be the ones that correctly solve the murder mystery (motive and opportunity)! I won’t give away too much, but there’s twists and turns to be had. At the end of the night, some awards are given out. Everyone either celebrates their successful crime-​solving escapades or revels in their inability to be a detective. Hint: I was in the latter camp…

I came to this show with an open mind and was somewhat excited. My sister took me out to this for my birthday and I was hoping it would be good. As a theater goer, I was hoping this would turn out like an improv Sports comedy thing or just fun interactive improv in general. It wasn’t as great as I would have thought it would be.
We went to the one in Stillwater and the place was kind of shabby. It looked like we were in a small church dining area. Nothing was really decorated and it just gave a feel of cheap and unsatisfying.
One of my biggest cons was that the show included picking audience members to be apart of the show. Now if they so happen to choose people who were into being apart of the show, cool, but the fact that sometimes they choose audience members who just don’t want to do it, it just completely ruins the experience.
I honestly felt that the storyline was just plain boring as well. It wasn’t exciting and it just wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. It was super obvious and the actors obviously wanted to sway your opinion on who the killer was. The actors were mediocre and sometimes they didn’t seem like they were completely into it.
The food was ok. It wasn’t terrible and it wasn’t great. It didn’t match up to restaurant/​bar quality foods like an Applebees or TGI Fridays. But it isn’t as terrible as fast food restaurants. I had chicken with mash potatoes and veggies on the side. The chicken wasn’t rubbery which was great and the veggies consisted of a few cut up carrots and 2 – 3 asparagus.
I honestly don’t think it was worth it for the price. I would have had a better time if we went to see a play or movie and went to dinner afterwards. And with the Gold tickets its definitely not worth it either. There wasn’t much difference with Gold tickets and regular tickets. We didn’t get gold tickets but were seated right in the center with a family who did buy gold tickets. They got nothing more than what we got except being able to get free pictures taken which were also bad quality.
So overall, I’m not sure what the one at the spaghetti factory is like, but the one in still water isn’t all that great nor was it worth the money. I don’t recommend this unless your doing a private event or if you go with a big group of friends who would love something like this. Otherwise, sitting with a bunch of strangers who don’t want to participate will be what you get.