The Murder Mystery Company – San Diego

Fortunately, I bought tickets (on Groupon) before I read the Unilocal reviews about the Murder Mystery Company– I probably would not have gone based on the poor reviews. However, when the evening was all wrapped up, all four people in our group thoroughly enjoyed our evening.
The venue at the Old Spaghetti Factory, was very nice, clean, and plenty of accommodate space to everyone and provide everyone with a good view of the happenings. The actors were great; they were entertaining and had a way of making it easy to participate if you chose.
The wait staff and food was great as well. Two in our party requested gluten-​free pasta and they were provided options and served a great meal along with the rest of us. That was really appreciated.
All in all– I highly recommend the Murder Mystery Company.

Out for date night and it was a lot of fun! Got to run around and solve a crime while talking to strangers and sneaking into bars. Nic was amazing and put on a good mystery! …we lost but we solved it!

If you want to pay to dress up this is your place. We went to the masquerade ball and wore fantastic ball gowns and masks. Also the spaghetti at the spaghetti warehouse was delicious, but don’t order the tortellini as the person at the table who did, did not get her plate till we were finished. If you want a salad with no ranch dressing put your order in or you will wait for 20 minutes. Thats as good as it gets. The actors were not actually actors as they are to scared to speak up and throw you off at every turn. Unless you set at a table with an actual suspect, you will never guess the conclusion. The upstairs of the spaghetti warehouse is not air conditioned so you will sweat to death. All in all pass this event up. It’s just not worth the drive.

The murder! The body! The suspects! Having been to a really fun murder mystery dinner theater before in Phoenix, I brought along my son and fiancé to the Murder Mystery Company’s production at the Old Spaghetti Factory in San Marcos last night. The spaghetti was delicious! The show, not so much.
The actors did their best. But as difficult as it was for we guests to hear anything, it must have been doubly difficult for them to try and portray the events.
I had purchased the Groupon tickets, which expired, but which they honored anyway (a plus). In addition, I purchased the elite «Gold Circle» status to get closer to the action. And a good thing I did, otherwise, we wouldn’t have had even the miniscule clues we had for being one table closer.
As much as possible, I’d like to try and make this constructive criticism, since if anyone from Murder Mystery Company reads it, perhaps they can modify the show to be better for their future guests. And for ease of reading, I’ll do a pros list and things-​that-​could-​be-​worked-​on list:
Pros: the actor at our table was enthusiastic. Everyone appeared to play their parts well, kept in character.
The food was awesome (I love spaghetti, so maybe that’s biased). The service was very good.
Things That Could Be Worked On:
I realize it’s all about revenue, however, if you’re not entertaining your customers, there will be no more revenue — no one will go to the show. So please try to keep the number of people seated at any given show under control. Because:
A) The crowded room was awful to try and squeeze through to arrive at my assigned table
B) Our assigned table was too packed with seats to leave even six inches of space in front of me to accommodate everything; i.e., the character book (with the clues, character, rules, etc.), the appetizer menu, my drink, silverware, plate, bowl, note sheet and pen. The note sheet got saturated with the sweat from my glass of soda, because there was nowhere to set it that it wasn’t going to come in contact with some sort of food or drink — and certainly nowhere to WRITE on it.
C) Due to the ridiculous amount of guests, the noise level was phenomenally high. The actress/​emcee who came to our table to explain how it all worked could be heard by MAYBE the two people she stood right in between, but by NONE of the other 10 guests squeezed into the table z9built for only 8 guests TOTAL), even though she was shouting as loudly as she could. In fact, the actor seated at our table and her guest were the ONLY two at our table who knew what was happening, and conversation even as close as one person down on either side or directly across the table could not hear me, nor I them. (And no, I do not have a hearing loss, and yes, I do have a loud voice when I want to).
D) Even the actors with the microphones had to tell everyone repeatedly to SHUT UP so they could do their parts. But with that many people, it’s difficult to bend them to your will.
E) Because we were so tightly packed in, anyone that went by behind me bumped into my chair — apparently there wasn’t any room in the aisles to walk without doing that, even though My chair was pulled up as far as it would go (and no, I’m not pregnant or overweight).
As it stands, we didn’t hear most of the clues given, people at most of the tables were loathe to leave to ask questions of the other tables’ actors/​suspects, since it was so tightly packed and hard to navigate the aisles, it was a hazard to do so, safer just to stay in your chair. When we had to decide the who-​dun-​it, we couldn’t even hear each other to give opinions on motive or opportunity, so our actor simply wrote down who she thought was guilty (we didn’t win).
The upshot is this: Use fewer tables, fewer people, and it’ll be a LOT more fun. I realize you have a quota to meet, and the Spaghetti Factory is probably not a cheap place to rent out an entire room, so MOVE. Go to another place that has a smaller banquet room set up, use their menu (as you did here), and it’ll be MUCH quieter, MUCH more entertaining, MUCH more worth spending the money on, and the actors won’t be so frustrated (yes, it showed). You’ll get more repeat business, because it’ll be a night worth spending money on. Currently, it is not. We’d have enjoyed ourselves more and spent less money if we’d just had dinner in the dining room last night.
And to the general public who might be thinking about attending this event — don’t buy the Gold Circle ticket. NOT WORTH IT. You get exactly one table closer to the «main events,» but it’ll be so noisy it won’t matter. The rest of the stuff happens at all areas of the room, so you get nothing special there, but it costs something like $ 15 per seat more.

I received a Groupon gift voucher for a dinner show at the Spaghetti Factory in San Diego. For over 6 weeks I tried to book a reservation online and all the shows (7) were always sold out. With a week to go before expiration of the voucher I called both Groupon and Murder Mystery.
The only solution offered by MM was to book the dinner in San Marcos, not a convenient location for me. Not wanting to invest any more time I agreed.
I give them one star only because the PR contact did reply to my email. They have a long long way to go to reach the quality of service provided by gold standards like Amazon, Trader Joe’s or Costco.
Sometimes you need a written policy if you can’t deliver what you sold… sometimes you just need common sense and team empowerment. (Contact Zappo’s if you are not sure what this is.)

The San Diego Murder Mystery Company did a fabulous Murder-​less, G-​rated Jewel Heist as our Cubberley Elementary PTA Family Game Night on Friday the 13^th of March. The actors were terrific and managed to engage all 80 people attending into solving the mystery of the missing jewels!
Working with the company to come to our school was easy and enjoyable. I communicated mostly over phone and email with people on the East Coast, all of whom gave us great customer service.
I highly recommend them for future PTA fundraisers and fun family nights. Awesome experience all around.

I bought the groupon for this, thinking it would be fun? Right?
NOT! It took me a month to make a reservation, the only thing available was in the middle of the day, I was charged a fee, then the day arrives and they say they do not have us down? What? I have a confirmation email and I have also been charged a $ 2.95 additional to make a reservation that disappeared. so they say.
According to the woman on the other line, the email means «nothing».
The one the actual company sent to me.
Bottom line DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY!

Wow, so sad I had not read previous reviews to The Murder Mystery a Company. We attended last night in San Marcos. So disappointed and will never recommend this to anyone!
First if your Cast member did not make a snide remark to me, when I did not want to tell him my name leave it at that. Way to loud, could, not hear anything, and loud drunk tables of people. I thought it was poorly organized, and was not entertained. Word of advice if you like something you tell a few friends, if service was horrible you tell ALOT OF FRIENDS, DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY!

Yikes… Talk about a joke. Bought it off groupon. Sounded like a real fun night to take my fiancé. Honestly the actors were cute but there was zero creativity. There were absolutely no clues given. You are in a team at a table with people you don’t know. The «investigation time» is useless because you can’t do much with everyone crowding the room. The photoshoot was fun, but really? You’re going to charge $ 20 to purchase the photos after we bought our tickets? Definitely should’ve been included.
How could you improve MMC? Use props, don’t over flow the room, actually have a plot, use more than one room, and have better acting than someone just laying down and playing dead… Not to mention the food was terrible, but I blame that on Spaghetti Factory. Wouldn’t do this again and not referring any friends.

I purchased a Groupon for this in November, and when I tried to redeem my Groupon, all of the shows were sold out. Since the Groupon expired in December, I was left with a voucher that wasn’t redeemable. I’m not giving a one star, because being sold out isn’t exactly the company’s fault, but it sucks that the expiration date was so soon. My one complaint, is contacting them via phone, there was a loop recording that I had to listen to for about 15 minutes before I gave up, got frustrated and ultimately just left a voicemail for them to call me back. Haven’t heard back. :(

I love writing excellent 5-​star reviews as I am a business owner and like to help other small businesses. However, this theater evening was a disaster. I should have gotten the ‘clue’ when it took me 6 phone calls to them to book the evening (as their web site wasn’t working for San Marcos). The dinner was fair. The acting was horrible, and the noise was SO LOUD that I couldn’t hear about ½ of what was happening. So I got up and left after about an hour. Waste of $$ for sure! The girl next to me (about 20 years old) also said she could only hear bout ²⁄₃ of anything. The acoustics were very bad. I was SO DISAPPOINTED as I was very excited to try this. DON’T BOTHER. IT’S NOT WORTH GOING.

This isn’t your run of the mill Mystery show. Murder Mystery Co. really gets you involved. At other shows I have been to, the performance is staged so you may participate if you want but ok if you don’t. THIS show makes for an interactive whodunnit to the very end. FUNFUNFUN!!! THE AUDIENCE MAKES UP ¾ of the CAST OF CHARACTERS. That means you could be the murderer! Our whole team really got into solving the case. There are lots of leads but only one murderer. We didn’t solve the case but we won a few awards. If you’re looking for a good time and getting into the game, this is a great show.

We had an Amazon Local for San Marcos. We were herded in like cattle. The room was very noisy, it was very hard to understand what was going on and we sat with another group who didn’t quit talking the whole night. Not fun!

Best murder mystery show I’ve been to! I’ve been to 3 or 4 others in other states and locations. The service was fast and the actign was superb. Excellent date night outing The food was alright, but we came more for the fun and weren’t disappointed! Highly rec!

I went to my first murder mystery dinner last night and it was awesome. Right when we walked in the door we were greeted by characters. The lighting really helped set the mood and the service was faster than what I would have expected with that many people. I enjoyed the actors, especially the butler and photographer. I wish there were more actors and less crowd participation because some members were not that good, but all in all it was a good experience and am already planning on trying out the location in San Marcos for comparison because of it’s closer location. Good first experience.

I haven’t been to any other murder mysteries so I can’t compare this to any others. That said my husband and I both had a really great time! Everyone at our table was really friendly. The food was just ok, so don’t come expecting a four star meal, but for us it was more about the experience than anything. The actors were funny and stayed in character. All in all I think it’s a great date, especially if you get the Groupon. The one downside to the Groupon is that there are not many available dates/​times so be prepared to wait a few weeks for a reservation. Totally recommended this for a fun, goofy, mysterious night out!

I really wish I had read the reviews before going!
I bought 2 (discounted, thank god!) tickets and took my husband. it seemed very unorganized, and the plot was not that great. I kind of thought it would be more like those old movies were everyone gets invited to dinner and they have to solve a crime and we’d kind of be the spectators and the actors would move around us, but it was, like someone else said. very cheaply made. not worth the price (not even the discounted price!) in the invite they talk a lot about mystery and mischief, but there was nothing like that in the ‘show’.
About the place (old spaghetti factory): The show in on the 3^rd floor and it was really hot! no air at all and the food wasn’t even good :(the salad was drenched in dressing and the pasta was almost just OK.

Terrible. I have been to numerous murder mystery dinners and this was by far the worst. The audience had to do all the work, not entertaining at all. It seemed like this whole «show» (if that’s what you want to call it) was done as cheaply as possible. The only good thing about it was getting to leave at the end. Don’t waste your money.

Love these kind of dinner shows. Have been to 2 others in SD and have had a wonderful time. So why the 1 star? This is the WORST company I have ever dealt with in trying to set up a reservation. Do not, I repeat, do not buy a Groupon deal for this show since there will 1) never be any dates available 2) you will spend countless times calling them just to hear the same words: «Just keeping checking the website… but we’re not sure when dates will open up»
I called and got a refund for this colossal waste of time.
The other reviews on here seem to agree — not worth it.

Went to a Murder Mystery Dinner held at the Old Spaghetti factory. For those of you who haven’t gone before, this event takes place on the 3^rd floor. There will be a line where you ‘check in’. They then take your pics, which they’ll try and sell you near the end of the show for $ 20. Also, this show is interactive, you may have to play a role, and if you don’t play a role, you’ll still be participating to try and get clues for your team.
They didn’t start serving the ceasar salad till at least an hour after the show started. We also got bread shortly after. Then they served your main entrée and at the very end, you get spumoni ice cream. Don’t expect to eat your main course till around 830−845pm. I understand that they have lots of mouths to feed at one time, but you could hardly find a waiter/​waitress to help you.
With that said, it wasn’t a bad time, but not sure I would come again for this. I would def purchase as a voucher deal vs paying full price.