New escape room business targets summer opening at Point Ruston

Everyone has wanted to escape the pandemic at some point over the past year. Soon, those looking for fun in the Ruston area can do just that for 70 minutes.

Escape Hour Point Ruston will open in August or September 2021, bringing a variety of immersive escape experiences to the Puget Sound.

The Point Ruston location will be the second Escape Hour in the area. Drew Matteson, co-owner of Escape Hour Point Ruston, said the escape rooms will be completely different from those at Escape Hour Gig Harbor, which is the flagship location. The third location is in Austin, Texas.

The Point Ruston location spans a couple thousand square feet, Matteson said, the majority of which will be occupied by two escape rooms, or what Escape Hour calls “immersive experiences.” The experiences are yet to be finalized, but Matteson said he and the two other co-owners — his parents — are working on that process.

“We have tentative ideas for the themes, and we have a lot of themes that we think would work well,” Matteson said. “We definitely have a handful that we’re ping-ponging back and forth.”

Escape Hour Point Ruston will use a tiered pricing structure. Groups are typically between two to eight people, and the cost for smaller groups will be the most expensive. Prices go down as group size increases.

The exact prices have not been decided yet, Matteson said, but they will be similar to those at Gig Harbor. Booking prices on the Gig Harbor location website are either $50 or $45 a person, depending on party size.

Matteson said escape rooms are a safe form of entertainment during the pandemic. Escape Hour is limiting the lobby to one party at a time, having employees wear masks and putting a 45-minute window between each booking to allow for sanitation. Parties are also private, meaning no one will be in an escape room with a stranger.

“We really try to control every single aspect, so this is literally one of the safest entertainment experiences you can get,” Matteson said.

Matteson said technical work at Escape Hour Point Ruston is taking place. The first signs went up mid-May, and more were installed June 10. Electrical and framing need to be signed off on. Once that is done, work on the escape rooms will begin. Matteson said his father is a general contractor and set designer, so he creates all of the props in-house.

“That’s kind of where all the magic happens,” Matteson said. “We’re really able to kind of take this process by the reins unlike other escape rooms.”

Matteson said escape rooms are growing in popularity and encourages anyone who has never been to one to visit the Point Ruston location when it opens.

“When I played my first escape room, I was hooked, and now I’ve played hundreds,” Matteson said. “If you can get past the initial hesitation and just dive in and let go of any of this anxiousness you have for something new, like I personally have with a lot of things, it opens the door to ... any immersive theme that you can think of.”

This story was originally published June 14, 2021 at 5:00 AM.