Teaser

SPEAKER_00 0:00

233. 233. So if you're gonna have an owner of an escape room, that's the one that you want to go with. Somebody who's seen it and done it all.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Yeah, we've I could have bought a house by now, but priorities, right? I mean, escape room priorities.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Yeah, I think you that was a good investment.

Meet Surf City Escapes

SPEAKER_00 0:15

And we're back with another episode of Unlocking Huntington Beach. What's going on? My name is Lane Stone, and we've got another good one for you today. It's part of our interview series, and we're with the owner, Ben Surf City Escapes. What's going on? Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Well, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

I'm so excited that you're here because if you guys haven't seen some of these videos on their Instagram, you should go check them out right now because it's great. They're in Pacific City, right across from the Bungalow. And we as a team actually had some fun yesterday as from where we're filming this yesterday. And we got to try out a couple of their escape rooms. I'm really excited to sit down with you and talk about your whole story and how we came about to search City Escapes. We'll dive right into it. First of all, I want to know where uh your nickname came from. I see that your nickname here is Road Dog 27. You know, honestly, I just made that up off the top of my head. I just want to see if you actually say it on the show. So I'm really glad you did. Said it on the show, right? So it's completely made up. Roadog 27 is now his new nickname. So make sure you comment Road Dog 27 and say what's up to Ben from Surge City Escapes.

From Volleyball to Escape Rooms

SPEAKER_00 1:12

But um, let's talk about a little bit about what got you into the escape room game. I know, like, does it start as far back as competitive volleyball?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

And then going into competitive escape rooms or pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

We did our first, my wife and I did our first one in 2019, and we were like, this is so fun. It was so cool that we started doing more and more. Then we traveled for volleyball events, you know, anywhere from Australia, China, wherever, we would always do escape rooms in the area. So we kind of thought started thinking, like, how cool would it be to have our own? And then we kind of joked around for about three or four years, like, oh, we could do this thing, we could do this, we could do this. And all of a sudden it was like, we could just do it. We should just do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

And when you said you started doing more and more escape rooms, why don't you tell us how many you've done? 233. 233. So if you're gonna have an owner of an escape room, that's the one that you want to go with, somebody who's seen it and done it all.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Yeah, we've d I could have bought a house by now, but priorities, right? I mean, escape room priorities. Yeah, I think you that was a good investment. Yeah, I think so too.

Design Philosophy for Beginners

SPEAKER_01 2:09

I hope so.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

So, did you for your 233 escape rooms that you've done, I'm sure you've learned like what you like about some of the escape rooms, what you don't like about some of the escape rooms. And did a lot of that go into consideration when you built out your rooms?

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yeah, I mean, a lot of it we there's kind of I'm gonna kind of answer your question, but with a big answer, if that's okay. Sure. There's kind of two sides of escape room. You have the business side, then you have the hobbyist side. Like some people want to build these big, elaborate 2,000 square foot games and a big warehouse and have all these bells and whistles. We decided to go a little more business aspect, being specific cities, smaller square footage, cheaper rent. But we also took a lot of aspects of having a lot of digital electronic puzzles, cool intros, cool outros, and making everything understandable because most people you get into your experiences are new players. And so I think this was your first experience. Everyone, you only done one experience. So we didn't want to make the puzzle so far-fetched and hard to understand where we turn away a lot of people. So all the puzzles we made, we got no red herrings, which if you don't know that is that's stuff that's supposed to throw you off. We have none of that in our games. Just make it easy to understand so new people can follow the story and follow the games better.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

And then once you complete it, it's like the satisfaction that you want to come back and do again or try another one and build your confidence in it again. And and when Ben's talking to some uh people off the camera, this is part of our team too. And our team was was Hi Toon, sorry. We had a couple first timers yesterday, and they had a really good time and they had a lot of fun. And we're already talking about doing uh a couple of your rooms coming up soon. We're ready for it. That sounds good. That

Choosing Pacific City Location

SPEAKER_00 3:34

sounds good. Um, okay, so your background though, you're a competitive volleyball player.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Yeah, so my first pro event was coming up in nine years ago. Wow. Long, long time ago. And then I was playing volleyball as I getting a little older. I kind of started thinking, like, what else could I do? I don't know a lot else. I know escape rooms, I know volleyball. So I was like, okay, well, let's pivot into escape room world now. And then that was in about 2024. We started doing our research to kind of figure out is this a business? Is a hobby shop? Like, how do we make this viable?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yep. And and I know you were talking about um Pacific City and the rents and making it a little bit smaller. When I think Pacific City, I really don't think cheaper rents, but uh you've found a good space that I think is conducive for what you what you need.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yeah, I mean it's small square footage, which kind of keeps our rent down a little bit. And you also account parking, which is a huge aspect to any business of having that facility down, that was a huge asset because a lot of escape rooms they'll be in areas where there's not a lot of parking. I try to find street parking, and that can turn away so much business already.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Great point.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Because a lot of people, we've done rooms before we're like, hey, we can't park, and they're like, Well, your game starts in five minutes, we're gonna start taking time off. We're like, well, and we then we're down, we go there, they took time off because have another group come behind us, and then it kind of hurts experience a little bit more. We have this beautiful parking structure where no issues without all the restaurants in the area, so we can kind of do business with all the other restaurants.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Get a ton of foot traffic, a lot of foot traffic.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

A lot of our business so far has been foot traffic through the hotels, just people, just people walking by and seeing, like, oh, this looks fun. They come, they come and ask questions, they book then, they book the next day. That's awesome. So that's that and that's a huge thing for our business, is just getting

Zoning and Local Roots

SPEAKER_01 5:03

eyes on it.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

And when you were thinking about space, did you always know it wanted to be you wanted to be in Huntington Beach?

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Yeah, I mean, yes and no. I've at first I want to think of more Irvines. There's a lot of escape rooms in that area, and for zonage laws, it's easier to open an Irvine. Okay, because uh escape rooms fall under recreation entertainment. That zonage isn't in Huntington Beach zoning code. Okay, so it's a little more difficult. However, Pacific City is such a mega for the city. The city allowed us to be a little more lenient with stuff like that. So we didn't have to go through a full C UP process, just little aspects of it.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

So CUP a conditional use permit? Correct. Okay, cool. Sorry, I just I don't know what other what the acronyms that people know on there. No, you're the expert. I'm just I'm just here to answer questions. You're the expert. That sounds good. Um, okay, and you do have some ties into Huntington Beach, though, right? You're local and born and raised in Huntington and went to Huntington Beach High School. Nice. What did you graduate? 2015. 2015, okay. I like it. I'm an oiler too. A little bit before you, I was 2007. Baseball. Oh, cool. Where shorter guys get to play. Yeah. Baseball's a cool sport, though. That's a cool sport. Yeah.

Room Themes and New Games

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Well, that's cool. Okay. Um, so 233 escape rooms done. And when you're building out, are you able to talk about a couple of your rooms without giving away any secrets?

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Oh, if I if I start to give away some secrets, you cut me off.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Okay, I'll cut you off. But I think you should talk to some of the viewers about what they can expect on a couple of your rooms, a couple of rooms that you have coming up.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

And so we'll go over the theme. So we have two experiences open right now that is surfs up and the winery infiltration. The premise of surfs up, which is my personal favorite, is uh your parents grounded you because you got caught ditching school. Well, they're off to Pilates, you're gonna break out of your room and try to find your surf force since the waves are epic, which that to me kind of just fit the Honey to Beach vibe, Honey to Beach theme, and there's no other surf theme room out there. And the room's doing really, really well right now in the in the escape room world.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

We get that's the one that I did, by the way. And that was somewhat I was the one that got grounded.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

And then the winery infiltrator premise of that one is that you're a winery owner. And unfortunately for you, your competitor winery is doing a little too good for your liking. So instead of trying to like find a way to boost your sales, you have to find your marketing avenues, you're gonna try to break into their business and shut it down. So that obviously try to fit the California aspect. Yeah. So a lot of two rooms we open, we try to intertwine California to some extent because we're near the hotels. And that a lot of tourism comes through as we try to incorporate as much of that as possible.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

That's smart. That's smart.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

And then the other room is we have our spooky game called Spectre Inspectors. The theme of that one is you're part of a ghost hunting team called the Spectre Inspectors. You got sent to an abandoned house to investigate investigate ghost activity. Two versions of that game, we have a family-friendly version where you're catching, well, maybe a little spoiler, but I'll say it anyway, sassy British ghosts.

unknown 7:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

And then you have a spooky version, it's more for the thrill seekers. But the reason why you have that room was I didn't notice, I know this at first, but horror or spooky is your number two seller for rooms. Your number one will be movie license games. Those are really expensive. I've tried to get a SpongeBob license, and it's too expensive. It doesn't work out like that. So Spooky is your number two seller, and every escape room will have to have some spooky element. Hence, a lot of that game is getting a lot of the most excitement. I think you're excited about that one.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Yeah, I'm very excited. I want to do spooky specter.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Yeah. And then I'm assuming some of the people who prefer more family specter. So two versions. People can play each one they want to, each one they like. Then our last game, we have a Sherlock mystery game.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Oh, I watched Sherlock, too.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Very detective themed room where you're inside a Victorian house trying to uncover a missing Egyptian artifact that was stolen.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Oh, that's right up my alley.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

That room's gonna have really that room's gonna be really techie as well. That's gonna be an easier game. So for first-time players, people who know nothing about escape rooms, that's the game I'd I'd recommend. Starting with that's our starter game. And Spectres, that's gonna be our hardest game.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Oh that one's gonna be hard. Hey, we're vets now. We we escape You guys are pros.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

You guys got out, so you guys can do it.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

We escaped the we escaped with 27 seconds left. So you know, we can do anything now. Yeah, you guys, you guys got it easy. I can't wait for Spooky Spectre and now the Sherlock One too. That sounds great.

Room Lifespan and Build Process

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Now, do you do you think that you're gonna rotate rooms out? Like, I talk about two, I guess it's a two-part question, but like what goes into building out a room, and when you build a room out, how long do you expect those rooms to stay indefinitely or eventually update them?

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Yeah, that's a bit of a gray area question because it's it's so different from every business. From where we are with a lot of tourism, high foot traffic, we can our games could last five to seven years, possibly. Other places that are an industrial park where you're just baking on SEO, people finding you online in local family areas, three to five years possibly. So, but to go into the building of an escape room, usually you can kind of start over with the idea. Like, what do you want to do? What do you want, what's the theme of the game? You kind of start thinking, okay, how does this incorporate into the theme we want? Like our surfing game, like, how can we think of surf theme puzzles?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Did you already know going into it that you were gonna do surfing and wine?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah, yes and no. For once we got the location Huntington, then it was my mind started thinking, okay, what fits Huntington Beach and what fits like what fits California, what fits Huntington Beach. Yeah, the wine theme, that's a theme that's pretty digestible for a lot of people. And I and that's a and escape rooms now is mostly young adults, you really enjoy them. That to me kind of fit really well. The surf theme, like if we were gonna be in Irvine Industrial Park, it wouldn't hit the same. It wouldn't hit the same, it wouldn't make a lot of sense. So that once we figure like Huntington Beach Pacific Sea is gonna be our home, that's gonna be the room that's gonna really encapture what we want to do here.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah. And then um, how long did it take you to for the surf one and the wine one that we have open now? How long did it take you to build those ones out? Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Well, we started building the props off site probably June of last year. Wow. Granted, I mean, but we have to, you know, the contracting part had to come in, but then for installation phase, it's about six to eight weeks. Wow. And that's them running all the had to run all the wires, connect props together, do all the coding because everything has to fire properly all the time, I'll also be coded. Have to test about two weeks of testing, making sure things work when they're supposed to. The audio makes sense, people can hear, or if it's too loud, too quiet.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

So when you're talking about two weeks of testing, like how many times would you say you and or others are running through the those games just to make sure you're confident enough of like this is ready for the parking lot?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

For surfs up, we had two weeks of testing. We average about four groups per day, four to five groups per day. So, about what is that? Um my math is so great. So about 40, probably 40 games before we were like, This is it. This is this is good. Yeah. Then we feel ready to go with it.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

That's great.

This or That Rapid Fire

SPEAKER_00 11:34

I have a little game that I want to play. It's oh boy. Little little this or that. It's super easy, but I'm gonna ask you this or that question, and you just say like what you think your preference would be between the two. Okay. All right. Scary escape room or a tame puzzle room. Scary escape room. Okay. So you're gonna be stoked for the spooky space. I I love the scary games. Okay. Would you rather be on a team full of beginners or a team with one genius who won't listen? A team full of beginners. Okay. So beginners can still get through, no problem. Oh, absolutely. No, absolutely. All right. Would you rather lose the game or ask for hints? Ask for hints.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

I will ask for as many hits as possible to finish the game. Really? I want to see the ending. I do not care about the time or how well we do, I just want to see it.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

So of the 233 escape rooms that you've done, of you know, I don't have to give me the exact answer, but if you had to ballpark it percentage-wise, like 50% of the time you ask for a hint, less than that, how many times How many times do we have I asked for a hint?

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah, probably 70% of the time.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

It could be something so simple of like, what do I do? Like, put the key inside the lock. I'm like, oh, you're right. That's something, but about 70% of the time I'll ask for a hint.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Okay, that's good to know because I always felt like, and I I've only done three, by the way. Yours yesterday was my third escape room, and I always felt like I can't ask for a hint. I don't want to ask for a hint. I need to, I need to outsmart the system. I need to outsmart the game. I want to get to the end. A lot of people think like that. And then there's been a time where I didn't finish either because I never asked for a hint. But it's really nice to know that somebody who's done it 233 times, 70% of the time you're asking for a hint.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

All the time. I mean, if you don't, I mean, it's supposed to be fun. A lot of people would get to the I mean, granted, you want to have fastest time, but if you're not, if you're getting so stressed where it's not fun anymore, ask for ask for help.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

So zero judgment if you ask for help. Absolutely, yeah, no judgment at all. Cool. Would you rather uh design puzzles or be the one solving them? Design puzzles. Okay. Would you rather get stuck in a room? Uh would you rather get stuck in your own room or test the competitors? Test of competitors.

Escape Room Community Mindset

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Can I can I touch on that super quick? I don't want to like go off topic. But in the escape room world, it's not a very traditional business. Your only competitor is bad experiences. So if you've done three, let's say you've done your first one and you had a horrible time. Like floorboards are coming off the ground, you asked for hands, game masher wasn't there, things were breaking. You would just say, I don't like these, then never go back. And then you would lose out a whole new person on the industry. So a lot of escape room owners, they we've kind of all worked together a little bit, they kind of help each other out. Like I had other escape roomers come beta test our games, they give us advice. I've beta tested other places already. Because we all try to the goal end goal is to get more people playing. Absolutely. So the goal, if we can just push out the really bad games that turn people off, that's that's the end goal. So then because once you finish my games, you don't come back. But if you can go to other places and play their games, then we did something right, and vice versa, they come to us after.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

You ever find yourself now being, you know, an escape room pro and an owner that you're giving other owners suggestions or tips or like it? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Oh, absolutely. We've made a test before, and they're like, I we give advice, like I think you use more lighting on this puzzle, it's kind of hard to see. The audio isn't this is this puzzle is a little bit of a stretch. Stretch meaning like even if you tell me what to do, it's still hard to follow. Like this puzzle is a little too complicated, like oh, all that stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Oh, that's great. So you guys have like just it's like a family.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

It is, it is like a big escape room family.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

I love that. And then and then the last question would be would you rather complete uh compete in a volleyball match again or do an escape room at uh competition? Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Probably an escape room competition.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Escape room, hey, that's where you're at in your life.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

That's where we're here now.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

I I feel the same way. Like it's like I played sports too growing up, and and where you're at in your life, it's like you know, lifetime moves on, but like volleyball, baseball, whatever it is, it's still a huge part of you. And maybe you gotta do a volleyball room.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

I've I've thought about that. I just haven't figured out how to incorporate it yet. But one day we'll have a volleyball room.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

It sounds like a sandy room.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

It'd be very sandy.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yeah. That's

Booking Info and Events

SPEAKER_00 15:26

cool. Okay, so uh for those that are maybe learning about um your escape room in Pacific City for the first time here, Surf City Escapes. Uh, where can they book a room? Where can they contact you? How can they learn about you know, bringing a group over?

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Yeah, so you can visit our website at surf city escapes.com. They'll have information there for you. You can follow us on our social medias at Circuscapes on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. We post a lot of contact there. On our website, you have my email, Ben Vaught at SurfCity Escapes.com. You can email me whenever, or you can just give me a call, 714-334-6373.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

And all of this information that Ben's telling you right now, it's all gonna be in the show notes. We're all gonna have the links to all of your channels there, all the websites. We'll have your phone number if you want us to put your phone number out there. But like we'll put it all out there for you so it's easy to contact.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

I get calls all the time and I'm I'm happy to take any call.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Can people book out like like for a corporate event? Can they book it out for the day? Or like or maybe days maybe too long, but can they um you know book out like we did yesterday? I think our whole team took booked out two rooms for an hour.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

And yeah, you once we get all four games open if a comp or a corporate event, whoever wants to brought out all four experience at once, we'll absolutely birthday parties and stuff like that too.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Yeah, absolutely. That's

Summer Plans and Wrap Up

SPEAKER_00 16:37

great. Is there anything that um you're most excited about for the future that maybe we haven't discussed yet about your escape rooms?

SPEAKER_01 16:44

I'm excited for summer. Summer. I'm excited for tourist season to come in because that's when because right now we're in kind of slow season right now, which was a good time to open to allow us kind of work out the kinks, you know, make sure things go properly. But once summer hits, we're gonna be slammed, and I'm excited for that.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

And it is there ever same day availability to do your rooms too if so if there's most of the bookings so far people book the same day. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

I get we'll get bookings like I had a 9 30, I was like, oh, no one's coming in. And then at 9 10, I'm starting to close up a shop. I check my phone, like, oh, we got a booking. Yeah. Turn every turn everything back on, we get the game back up and running again.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

You're always safer booking ahead of time online, but it but it's really nice to know that you can go uh same day.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Yeah, you can book, yes, you can book if the there's a slot available, you can book 20 minutes before.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

I love that. I love that. Well, is there anything else before we sign off that you feel like we might have touched need to touch on or missed? I think we kind of covered everything. That's awesome. Well, you guys should definitely check out Surf City Escapes. Ben's the man. What was your nickname again? It was uh Road Dog27. Road Dog 27 is the man. Uh, I think you guys should definitely check it out. We had a really good time. There's even more rooms coming in the near future. All of the links, everything you need to do to find him is going to be in the show notes. So if you're watching this on YouTube, check out the show notes. If you're listening to on a podcast, uh, don't drive, be safe, but make sure you save this episode and go back to it later. As always, my name is Lane Stone. I leave this with you each and every week. Do good. Night to Beach deserves it, and we'll see you on the next one. Thanks, Ben. Thank you for having me.