16 October 2023
A new escape room and restaurant is set to open soon in a bone-chilling locale — the former Wulff Godbout Funeral Home on West Seventh — just in time for Halloween.
The immersive puzzle experience is called The Lodge of Lazarus Crowe, and each escape room reveals a new portion of a deep fictional backstory centered on a magical secret society and its mysterious founder, Lazarus Crowe, said owner Jamie Fassett-Carman.
The more escape rooms you solve, the more of the story you’ll uncover, he said. He and his mother, Karen Fassett-Carman, run Trapped Puzzle Rooms, which has locations in the Minneapolis North Loop and Highland Park.
Meanwhile, the restaurant — called Hourglass Cafe and Bar — is in what was formerly the funeral home’s chapel.
A soft opening for the escape rooms is underway, but tickets are all sold out. The rooms will open to the public within the next few weeks. Hourglass is scheduled to open Oct. 27.
As for food, Hourglass is planning to serve flatbreads and grilled sandwiches, tacos, macaroni and cheese, and a variety of roasted vegetable sides. Several menu items, like chaat masala loaded fries, have an Indian flair.
“That decision came down to: That’s something we like,” Jamie Fassett-Carman said. “We wanted to offer at least some sort of familiar-looking bar-style food to eat. You can eat with your hands, chat with your friends, talk about your game. It’s not that formal of a setting.”
A cocktail glows under a blacklight and is served in a lightbulb-shaped vessel at Hourglass Bar and Cafe, a new restaurant on West Seventh. The cafe is part of the Lodge of Lazarus Crowe, a new escape room, and is set to open Oct. 27, 2023. (Photo courtesy Jamie Fassett-Carman)
And when designing the drink menu, he wanted options that were not quite what they seemed. One cocktail glows under a blacklight and is served in a lightbulb-shaped vessel. Another is served in a beer mug and looks like a hazy IPA, Jamie Fassett-Carman said, but is actually a tropical rum drink. They’ll have non-alcoholic cocktails on the menu, too.
Pairing food and drinks with an escape room-style game seems like a no-brainer, but it’s actually not common, Jamie Fassett-Carman said.
Because escape rooms can take on so many different layouts and themes, they’re often tucked away in small pockets of real estate, he said. Because of space constraints or zoning issues, it’s often impossible for escape room companies to offer food and drinks. But in the iconic building on West Seventh, Jamie Fassett-Carman knew he had space for something unique and sensible.
“It makes perfect sense because (for) so many customers at our existing rooms, the main question they ask us is, ‘Where can we go to eat afterward?’” he said. “So if we have the ability to serve them, we’re offering something everybody wants.”
But getting a restaurant up and running in an 83-year-old mortuary building was not easy, Fassett-Carman said. One challenge: To install the kind of ventilation system that’s required for modern commercial stoves and ovens, they would’ve needed to replace the entire building’s HVAC system, he said — an update was not exactly within their budget. They designed a menu that needs only ventless equipment like panini presses and air fryers.
The historic building was constructed in 1940 as the third home of Charles Godbout and Son Mortuary. The business was purchased in the 1980s by Wulff Family Mortuary, which operated the Wulff Godbout Funeral Home in the building up until a few years ago. The family still runs funeral homes and mortuaries on the East Side and in Woodbury.
Hourglass Cafe and Bar will have 48 seats plus eight bar stools, and will be open Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 10 p.m.; Fridays from 3 to 11 p.m.; Saturdays from noon to 11 p.m.; and Sundays from noon to 10 p.m.
The restaurant will be open to the public — you don’t need to have played the escape room to eat or drink there.
The Lodge of Lazarus Crowe and Hourglass Bar and Cafe: Opens Oct. 27 at 560 W. Seventh St.; www.instagram.com/lazaruslodge/
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