Here at Secret San Francisco, we love a social brunch, park hang, or day trip as much as anyone. But there’s a lot to be said for diversifying your weekend plans and trying something new. Puzzles and games are a thrilling and underrated way to bond as a group or do some corporate team building — with that in mind, we’ve tracked down some of the most engaging escape rooms in the San Francisco Bay Area.
From terrifying horror experiences in complete darkness to family-friendly immersive puzzles, these local escape rooms will cater to any group’s size and skill level. Round up your cleverest friends and get ready to tackle some of the most creative and exhilarating experiences in the Bay.
1. The Escape Game
The Escape Game in San Francisco creates engaging locally-inspired escape rooms with themes that recall the city’s Gold Rush history and Alcatraz lore. The locations in Fisherman’s Wharf, Downtown SF, and San Jose each have 5-6 different rooms to choose from. Each game features multiple rooms with various difficulty levels, carefully designed to create a memorable immersive experience no matter the theme you choose.
“Prison Break” is perhaps the most iconic escape room San Francisco has to offer, where players are separated into two different 1950s-style prison cells and must work together to escape in under an hour. Another popular one is “Gold Rush,” found at all 3 Bay Area locations, where you must break into an old-timey cabin to get your hands on a gold fortune.
🎟️ $44.99 per player
📍Locations:
- 150 Kearny St, Downtown San Francisco
- 145 Jefferson St, Fisherman’s Wharf
- 2855 Stevens Creek Blvd, Santa Clara
2. Palace Games
Palace Games in San Francisco is a local favorite for its creative themed escape rooms and high production value. The puzzles are carefully crafted with innovative technology and exquisite attention to quality, so you’ll feel like you’ve stepped into a room designed over a century ago. Their location within the historic Palace of Fine Arts plays a role in the design, with special nods to the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
The Great Houdini Escape Room is a Palace Games crowd-pleaser, in which 4-8 players go head-to-head with the legendary twentieth-century escape artist. Other themes include Thomas Edison’s secret laboratory, a special challenge set forth by Teddy Roosevelt, and a mysterious condemned carnival attraction.
🎟️ $53-106 per player
📍Palace of Fine Arts, 3362 Palace Dr, San Francisco
3. EscapeSF
Despite being one of the most affordable escape rooms in San Francisco, EscapeSF doesn’t skimp on production value in these realistic, multi-room environments. Rather than relying on padlocks and paper puzzles, they prioritize high-tech game design using clever behind-the-scenes tricks and automation.
EscapeSF has three private escape rooms available with varying levels of difficulty. These include “Escape From Alcatraz,” designed to replicate the feel of the actual historic prison; “Escape from Blind Tiger Bar,” where players go head-to-head with mafia bosses during Prohibition; and “King Arthur’s Legacy,” a new room that sends you on a quest for Excalibur.
🎟️ $33-45 per player
📍602 Kearny St, San Francisco
4. PanIQ Room
PanIQ Room is an international franchise with locations in both SF and San Jose. They use a “European escape room model” to put players in life-like situations with convincing props, high-tech puzzles, and professional voice actors to give you hints.
Test your bravery at the San Francisco location’s “Medieval Madness” room, which takes you on a difficult and creepy medieval-themed adventure. There’s also the more family-friendly “Wizard Trials” theme, where you’ll embark on a quest to find your master’s missing cat. In the San Jose location’s “Insane Asylum” room, you’ll escape from twisted scientists at a rundown hospital from 1956.
🎟️ $39.95-59.95 per player
📍Locations
- 2146 Mission St, San Francisco
- 2270 Quimby Rd, San Jose
5. Reason
Reason is responsible for some of the most high-tech escape rooms in San Francisco, all of which have exhilarating sci-fi themes. Choose from three different escape room options designed for larger groups.
“Mars” is a 5-9-person game in which your team must get a Martian mining outpost back online using futuristic technology. Another option is “Sonar,” designed for 10-30 players, and uses VR and holograms to recreate the feeling of a deep-ocean research station.
🎟️ $40-52 per player
📍364 11th St, San Francisco
6. Escapology
Escapology is an international franchise offering high-adrenaline escape room experiences all around the world. We’re lucky to enjoy two Escapology locations here in San Francisco, plus a San Ramon outpost coming soon. The North Beach location has five different rooms, including “Narco,” where you’ll have to escape the clutches of a dangerous drug cartel, and “Antidote,” where you must save the world from chemical warfare. The Stonestown Galleria location is slightly larger with eight different rooms, including an Agatha Christie-themed story following the plot of Murder on the Orient Express, and a spooky Scooby-Doo-themed adventure in a haunted castle.
Both locations also offer some of Escapology’s most popular rooms including “7 Deadly Sins,” where you must free yourself from a curse; “Lost City,” an adrenaline-filled treasure hunt; and “Mansion Murder,” which takes place at a creepy old estate.
🎟️ $42.99-49.99 per player
📍Locations:
- 430 Bay St, North Beach, San Francisco
- Stonestown Galleria, 3251 20th Ave Ste 360, San Francisco
- 6000 Bollinger Canyon Road #2400, San Ramon (coming soon)
7. Red Door
Red Door offers numerous engaging escape rooms throughout the United States. They design every escape room with teamwork in mind, so make sure you gather your mightiest squad to take on these creative puzzles. Both the San Mateo and Concord locations offer eight thrilling escape room themes, including “Prison Break,” where you’ll use your special powers to break free from a prison cell; and “Once Upon A Time,” an easier room where you must locate enchanted objects in a magical castle. San Mateo’s “Confinement” room is the most difficult one, where you’ll have to keep your wits about you to escape a terrifying nightmare.
🎟️ $41.95 per player ($24.95 for 30 min quick play)
📍Locations:
- 90 Hillsdale Mall, San Mateo
- 2075 Diamond Blvd Suite 275, Concord
8. Escape Oakland
Escape Oakland is a highly-rated independent escape room center with four thrilling themes to choose from. These puzzles aren’t for the faint of heart — with success rates ranging from just 20-40%, you’ll have to keep your focus in order to earn the title of “escapist.” Book an hour at “The Society,” and see if you can pass a secret society’s initiation rituals, or put your detective skills to use in “Spy Game,” where you’ll have to solve puzzles to track down a secret spy syndicate.
Escape Oakland also runs Clockwise Escape Room in Pleasanton, where you can enjoy another 3 escape games including “Back to Childhood,” “Revenge of Medusa,” and “Saving Frankenstein.”
🎟️ $35-42 per player
📍Locations:
- 522 7th St, Oakland
- 4713 First Street, Suite 100, Pleasanton
9. Beat The Lock
Choose from four invigorating themes at this popular San Jose escape room center. What’s great about Beat The Lock is that it offers a kids version for each room that’s specially customized for groups between 10-16 years of age, making it a good candidate for children’s birthday parties.
Try “The Spy Room,” in which you’ll have 60 minutes to escape a trap set by a spy inside his own home; “Secrets in the Attic,” where you’ll need to decipher your late Grandma Edna’s clues to find her will; “Xternal Forces,” an elite cosmic mission set in Paris, France; and “The Sound of Murder,” a new 1970s escape room where your team will track down a serial killer.
🎟️ $25-38 per player
📍 2131 The Alameda A, San Jose
10. Omescape
Gather your best team to tackle Omescape‘s selection of creative and wide-ranging escape rooms. San Jose’s 5,500-square-foot location boasts five engaging themes including “Kingdom of Cats,” where you’ll climb and crawl your way through a cat-themed battlefield; and the terrifying “Joker’s Asylum,” where you’ll have to track down the elusive Joker before he finds you.
Omescape’s Sunnyvale facility covers an enormous 16,000 square feet which makes for even larger and more immersive escape rooms. Get a larger group together for the team vs. team “Midnight in Hong Kong,” a competition between two local crime families. Or test your senses in “The Apartment Next Door,” which takes place in pitch darkness.
🎟️ $35-70 per player
📍Locations
- 625 Wool Creek Dr. Ste. E, San Jose
- 1135 E Arques Ave, Sunnyvale