New owners take over Think Tank Escape Rooms
Local business offers area residents an opportunity to unlock an adventure
Lisa Meisner remembers her first visit to an escape room, searching for clues about a stolen fortune at Mind Hack in Hammonds Plains.
She was captivated by all the little details that brought the room, named Railroaded, alive.
“It’s fascinating how much imagination and creativity and time goes into each one of these rooms,” Meisner says, adding the game masters are a big part of making the experience feel authentic.
Little did she know, but years later Meisner would be working in escape rooms herself.
Meisner has been the location manager at Think Tank Escape Rooms in Bridgewater since May, after new owners took over the business in January.
Though she’s familiar with management roles, this is the first time she’s had a job that involves intricate themes of riddles and puzzles that groups are tasked to solve within a given time limit.
Meisner has gone through more escape rooms since that initial experience and now gets to see it from the other side.
“It is actually a lot of fun because you have the security cameras in the room so you’re watching how they’re moving through the room and what they’re looking at,” Meisner says.
“Every group that comes in is totally different. They look in different ways, solve puzzles in different ways and it’s really interesting to watch. Being the person who knows where the answers are and giving the clues and making it more of a game story experience when you’re trying to give the clues, it’s just a lot of fun.”
Meisner says she enjoys going to work; it likely helps that she gets to be with family when she does.
Her teenage daughter, Bella, started working at Think Tank in January — her first job.
“It was interesting because she actually trained me,” Meisner says, adding that Bella taught her about the rooms.
The location has three main rooms: The Academy, which is based around Lunenburg Academy and is tied to a ghost story about a girl named Sophia who was accused of stealing $10; Create The Cure, which tasks players with getting the cure for a virus spreading around the globe; and The Incident, which is based on the Shag Harbour UFO Incident from 1967 and asks players to search for proof of alien life.
Meisner notes all of the rooms are original creations from either the previous or current owners.
Though she didn’t have a timeline, she says they’re making plans for the next room. It will replace Create The Cure, she says, encouraging game enthusiasts to visit that room next if they’re interested in playing it before it’s gone.
Meisner says they keep the rooms for at least a year, with popular ones like The Academy, lasting longer.
She says if they ever expand, she’d love to see a theme room added.
Most recently, they’ve added pop-up escape rooms and have brought them to Canada Day and parade events in the area in an effort to raise community awareness about the business.
The pop-up rooms are shorter, coming in at a time limit of 15 minutes rather than the usual hour, and incorporate only a few puzzles.
“That has definitely helped pick things up,” Meisner says, adding that they saw a lot of business over March Break and the summer.
They want to bring more pop-up games to the community, she says, and hope to take part in more local events as well as add options like birthday party packages.
For more information, visit them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ Thinktankescape or email
thinktankescaperooms@gmail.com.