The Dinner Detective Murder Mystery Show - Kansas City, MO — Local services in Kansas City

I originally left a 5 star review right after leaving this place, and at the time I thought it was pretty good until my husband told me how much we paid for it. Here’s my thoughts and experiences with this show: My husband took me on a surprise date to this place. Walking out, I was expecting we maybe paid $40 a person give or take. We paid almost $87 per person ($75ish per person before tax and fees) . My jaw dropped when I heard how much we paid. I feel bad for saying this, but it did not meet expectations for that price. The room we were in was in a conference room type thing of a hotel. My husband was expecting a much different atmosphere/place than this. We went in ready to eat and expecting to eat dinner right away (like not to long into the show), and we didn’t eat dinner until over 2 hours after being there. We did get a small salad (that had already been sitting there for awhile) but that was it. While the two hours of waiting, we were getting a little frustrated as time went on because we were starving. We were also in the back of the room so it took another 10-15 min (after they started serving people) for them to get to our table with the food. By the time we received our food, it was warm, but not hot. The food was good, but nothing fancy. I could easily make it at home for wayyy cheaper. Also the waiters were never around, so my husband had to take the initiative and go get water because our whole table was out of water. The idea of the murder mystery thing is a fun idea. And I respect the actors, I also love to act so I respect what they did for the show. It was funny at times. Again for the price though, it just wasn’t really good enough I guess? The acting wasn’t very convincing. I wasn’t able to believe that a murder just happened and that they were concerned and trying to figure out who did it. I feel bad and really didn’t want to bash this show, but I couldn’t get myself to leave a 5 star review up when I didn’t believe it too be a 5...

This is a great idea but poorly executed. I love that the actors have jobs and are mostly passionate about what they do. The food wasn't very good and the service was zero. I had to hunt down waiters several times to request tea, as the website suggests, but not one of them spoke English so they just looked at me blankly. Finally, they figured out that I needed help and got the manager. I asked for tea and the lady next to me asked for butter. He said he'd be right back and never returned. So, we were stuck trying to communicate with the waitress again but got the same result. No, I never did get the tea.

I'm not sure how basic the plot is supposed to be but the "suspect" was obvious from the start and there was no real story. I was expecting more effort, I guess. Everyone (except the waiters) were super nice and energetic but this was really overpriced. I understand the struggle in the entertainment field but they should offer Groupon again, even if only a limited amount. Be sure to expect to spend some extra on drinks, otherwise, you're stuck with water since no working there knows about serving the included tea/coffee.

In theory, they're different because they force the audience to interact but it's basically telling everyone to get up and ask questions to other tables, which no one is comfortable doing for a lot of reasons. The table across from us was super loud and rude to the point that a lady at ours asked them to be quiet. That made them mad and even more aggressive. Who's going to talk to them now?

So, kudos to the producers for the unique setup but we did prefer the traditional play style format.

Park on the street nearby or you'll be paying $15+. Unfortunately, my friends hated it so much that they got up and left. I decided to wait it out but things didn't get better. The suspect was the best part of the act (8/27/23) throughout the experience, even if we already knew it was him. Also, we had a fun group at our table...

The food was lousy and was served by a poor wait staff. The food preparation and service felt like it was a poorly executed after thought. It was better than elementary school food...maybe even better than high school food but for the price I expected the food to be at least as good as commercial cafeteria food. Rolls were stale, food was dried out from sitting too long. Yuck.

The service was lousy. Maybe too few people ...maybe they did the best they could but they seemed preoccupied with something else. The room was not set up properly for food service. The room was located in the basement of a hotel and it seemed like if you needed a fork, extra napkin, cup of coffee, or glass of tea - so much time would pass it seemed like they had to go upstairs to get whatever you asked for. Nothing to do with the serving of food was conveniently located in the room where the food was served. There was an arm high bar rolled in that was made of plastic. Not that I have anything against a temporary bar...but it added to the whole atmosphere of: ‘Hey I have an idea....let’s rent a room in the basement of some hotel or something and we’ll put on some kind of show. Hey we could have the hotel cook our food that we serve (I’m sure we could get a discount if we used the food service located on the hotel grounds) and we’ll keep it simple with just chicken and fish. We could roll the food down in a big warming cart - we’ll hire some temps to serve it. It’ll be fun and profitable. We’ll even roll in one of those plastic bar thingys to serve drinks.’

The actors tried to give a good performance ....that is why I rated 2 stars instead of 1. The actual story line of the show was rather schizophrenic and hard to follow. I was able to finish the night but it took some forced looks of enjoyment. I won’t be back or recommend it to anyone.

The dinner theater in Overland Park is much more professional...