Murder Mystery With a Side of Spaghetti
by
SoCal Savvy Mom’s Nicole Hughes planned the best birthday surprise a mystery-loving girl could have asked for, organizing a night of suspense, intrigue and … murder.
Nicole kept the details of our night under wraps, so I had no idea where we were going or what we were doing. Only that I was supposed to dress the part. The theme was 1950s, a fun and fairly easy costume to whip up.
When we arrived at our destination, The Old Spaghetti Factory in San Marcos, I was excited to see my friends had all embraced the theme as well. They looked great!
Once seated in the dining room, surrounded by costumed hosts and similarly dressed guests, it took just a few minutes to solve the first mystery of the night—we were at a murder mystery party!
For this real-life version of “Clue,” one of my favorite movies by the way, we had a super-sleuth crew consisting of Holly Bacca, Molly Burke, Kara Brem, Allison Gardner, Nicole Hughes and my sister Lynne Hakes. We had the brains and the beauty. The other teams didn’t stand a chance.
Dubbed “team cheerleaders” we were instructed to “be loud.” Five minutes in we were on our way to successfully annoying the rest of the partygoers. And oh yeah, solving the murder.
Hats off to our hosts, along with the amazing group of servers who kept the food and drinks flowing all night—and of course side-splitting laughs. Throughout the night we were all encouraged to mingle, ask questions and get to know the our fellow detectives in the room. But we didn’t want to get too friendly, they were our competition after all.
I think my favorite part of the night was when my dear friend Kara solved the who-dun-it after one quick round of questions. Smart cookie that one. We spent the rest of the evening trying to determine motive, because every good murder has a good back story.
With some dancing, fun games and other silliness blended in (my sister got to ham it up as one of the chosen sock-hop role-players) the night was a blast. And yes, I wasn’t kidding, our team did solve the case. We have the certificate to prove it.
A great date night, girls’ night, or family night (though I’d recommend it for older kids who have the attention span to join the fun), The Murder Mystery Co. hosts public events at two locations, plus private parties. Check out the full details at MurderMysteryDinnerSanDiego.com.
Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes, Jessica Fletcher… all good detectives. But last night my girls and I put them all to shame.
