As we celebrate the 5th anniversary of Escape Room Arlington, our team is looking back on all the incredible memories we've made over the years. From designing new rooms to watching players solve puzzles, we've had the pleasure of experiencing the excitement and joy of experiencing the best escape room in Arlington. Here are just a few of our favorite memories:

Caitlin:
“I have always enjoyed getting to know our guests! It has been a joy over the past few years getting to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, engagements, and so much more. My favorite story is about Theresa and her wonderful family. Theresa came for a birthday celebration with her family and I was their game master for their first game with us. We all had a great time and it was so nice to be a part of their birthday festivities. Their family came back a month or so later for another birthday and I was their game master again. It was wonderful to see them again and at the end of their game, they said they would be back for the next birthday in just a few weeks. For their third time with us, I was able to run them through their next room. During 2020 when we were closed for a brief amount of time I knew their fourth family member had a birthday and I was sad I wouldn’t get to help them through their fourth experience with us. During my first week back after our re-opening I walk out into our lobby and see Theresa and her family waiting to play.   It was such a joyous moment to see them again and to celebrate another birthday with them!”

Jordan:
“My favorite memory is when we were starting the planning on Retro Replay--I was campaigning to include a coin pusher as one of the arcade games. Unfortunately, since we could not find a way to fit the machine into the room/puzzle flow/story, that never ended up happening. I was surprised to come into work one day to find that everyone had pitched in to get me my own personal toy coin pusher! It was the best surprise, and I truly work with the best people on the planet!”

Nini:
“It’s always so much fun when we play very small pranks on each other within the staff. Sure we have little things like memes behind a cabinet door, but it’s even better when we come up with our own jokes. So far we’ve used thermal ink to hide a hidden message that we tricked one coworker into laminating thinking it was a prop piece, and another time we created a small playlist with the titles of the songs creating a silly little message to one of our managers.”

Dan:
“The best memories are from the people I'm fortunate to call coworkers and friends. Every person I work with now is amazing, and every former coworker is someone I loved working with and miss, no matter where and how they've moved on. I keep in touch with as many people as I can, and those friendships are what I cherish the most.

I loved playing D&D at the dining room table of our Secret in the Attic escape room after hours. I am glad I was tricked into staying up til 3AM watching a specific movie for source material when designing puzzles for Glitch. I miss eating tacos with my talented coworkers after helping throw a successful puzzle event, and I miss laughing over bad frozen pizza while coming up with off-the-wall puzzles for whatever new escape rooms we're brewing.

I loved having a space to visit all of our islands in Animal Crossing while we were all holed up between March and July during the peak pandemic season, and I feel lucky to get to see everyone again once we all returned to work safely. I've cherished every going-away party we've thrown - between visiting other escape rooms, bowling, and mini-golf - and I've missed everyone we've ever had to say goodbye to, especially those we didn't have a chance to throw a party for.”

As we look to the future, we're excited to continue creating new rooms and experiences for our players. We're grateful for the support of our community and the dedication of our staff, and we can't wait to see what the next five years have in store for the best escape room in the DC area.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of our journey so far. Here's to many more memories to come!