The Dinner Detective Murder Mystery Dinner Show - Austin, Texas — Local services in Pflugerville

I suggest that you do not spend money on the Austin Murder Mystery production and dinner. There is a reason there is a strict no-refund policy for this poorly run program. The event was not worth the ticket price. Actors and staff did not have microphones. The audience couldn’t hear half of the dialogue. The script was lame and poorly acted; it was like a bad middle school theater production. The food was bad and slow to be served. Dry, wilted lettuce on the salad. No tea/coffee available as was advertised. Only water was offered, and I refilled my own glass. The event was under-staffed. There was a cash bar that was heavily promoted whenever the facilitator spoke. No basic amenities like bread or saltines were on the table, no salt/pepper--there was nothing except glasses of water and place settings. The event was understaffed, and the food/beverage service was poor. There were too many people packed into a small room. Too many tables for the space. I literally touched others’ shoulders, constantly, when we were told to walk around and mingle. Truly, there was not 1 ft of personal space available. It was like being in an overly crowded elevator for hours. This would be physically uncomfortable, and unacceptable, even before Covid. Today, the crowding was ridiculous. Any commentary about Covid precautions on the website was completely untrue. We stayed 2 hours. We left early to go to a restaurant. At that point, we were literally hungry--and were very uncomfortable with the overcrowding. Plus, we could not hear the production anyway. I spoke with Customer Service the next day and a representative told me she was taking notes while we talked on the phone. Was told that the group would be changing venues in the near future. I later received an email saying that the franchise management would be traveling to Austin to work with the local group and there would be a new venue. They refunded the processing fee of about $30, saying that they could not refund the Groupon full ticket price. 'Looks like another convenient excuse for poor customer service. Consumers, be warned about this waste of...

I went to the show on 4/9/22 and was very disappointed. It was very disorganized from the time of purchase. It was at one location, an email said it was moved to another, then a later email said it wasn’t moved. With the change the menu changed, but then it didn’t. When you buy tickets you can request to be seated with your party, but it didn’t happen with my group. It says tea and coffee will be served, but it’s not. The dinner service was poor to non-existent. NO ONE checked on us. Water glasses weren’t refilled, someone at my table didn’t have cutlery, someone’s desert was missed, no salt and pepper, and there was no one available to ask. Dinner wasn't served until after 8, everyone around me was hungry.

The show itself was loud, silly, and disjointed. There was no story line. When I’ve gone to mystery dinner’s at other places the whole show centered around a central story and you solve clues, and there are multiple plausible suspects, and the event was about deciding the most likely one. I thought that was how this was advertised, but everything the actors did was so random and not connected. Audience members sang karaoke and a lie detector test was given about alcohol consumption. In the end it wasn’t even clear what the story was and that it was time to solve it. There were 5 guesses out of 80 people, with no one guessing correctly, which should signal something went wrong. My table didn’t even recall ever seeing the perpetrator before he was revealed.

The room was too crowded and too loud to be enjoyable. Nothing was said about COVID precautions and there wasn't a decent explanation of what to expect. We were supposed to mingle, which was weird and awkward with no one understanding what to do. We couldn’t hear, and when an actor shows a picture on his cell phone (which happened several times), very few people are able to see it. The actors literally shushed the audience multiple times—the audience couldn’t tell when something was actually going on. This is a great concept and could really be fun but needs organization and...

The overall experience was good. The actors were funny and made us laugh. The food was tasty but very small portions. Not enough to make you feel full. (I noticed men actually taking food from their spouses plate because they were still hungry) Also I think there was some gaps in the clues in general as there were absolutely no hints or clues in anyway of the actor that happened to be the killer. I would recommend for improvement: 1.Larger food portions Better description of the story in general. Explanation at the end why that actor was the killer what were the motives (for those that couldn’t figure it out, which in my case seemed to be a lot of people.) There needs to be a specific deadline of when you should give the paper or write on the app “who was the killer” We and a lot of other people never got a chance to submit who we thought was the killer because we were never informed of a deadline of submission. We just got an unexpected announcement of the winner without knowing that the time was up to submit our thoughts of the killer.

Overall it was good experience that’s why I put 4 starts and it was the 1st time we ever done anything like this but if you want to improve and skyrocket, and if you want people to keep coming back to see more there can be some improvements...