Continuing the Tradition!

Earlier this year, Bull City Escape officially changed hands to new owners, Dan and Chrissi Harmon.

“We first visited Bull City Escape as Customers, and were blown away by the quality of the games and the passion of the staff. They were creating amazing Customer experiences. We just had to be a part of it!”

That commitment to Customer experience has built a huge, loyal fan base.

“Our Customers know we’re rooting for them. We want them to escape the room, but whether they escape or not, we do everything we can to make sure they have a great time.”

These (almost) North Carolina natives have lived in North Carolina for over 20 years, and raise 4 amazing children!

“This is an exciting new adventure for all of us! We’re so grateful to Alice and her staff for building such a successful business. We can’t wait to continue building these amazing experiences!”

We’d love to hear from you! Drop us a note at info@bullcityescape.com and let us know how we’re doing!

Bull City Escape Earns 2019 TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence

For the 3rd year in a row, Bull City Escape has been awarded the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence. With over 150 reviews averaging 5-stars, Bull City Escape is ranked #1 for Fun & Games in Durham, North Carolina.

Now in its 9th year, the Certificate of Excellence designation recognizes establishments that consistently earn great TripAdvisor reviews from travelers.

The Certificate of Excellence accounts for the quality, quantity and recency of reviews submitted by travelers on TripAdvisor over a 12-month period.

Squad Goals! Durham Group Activities

By Ashley Strahm

Dive in to find your way out at Bull City Escape

This interactive experience will test your group's wits. You'll be locked in a room for 60 minutes; to escape, you'll have to find clues, solve puzzles, and crack codes. This escape game is sure to test your team members' communication, collaboration,and brain power.

Pros: You'll get to show off your super sleuthing skills. All of that Matlock has finally paid off.

Cons: Well, this is obvious - you're locked in a room with your coworkers for an hour. Team bonding, indeed.

Details: A maximum of eight people can play at the same time and the cost is $25 per person. To book a private event during the week, contact Bull City Escape directly.

The 3 best escape game spots in Durham

In search of a new favorite escape game spot?

Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top escape game spots around Durham, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of the best spots to venture next time you're in the market for escape games.

1. Bull City Escape
Topping the list is Bull City Escape. Located at 711 Iredell St., the escape game spot is the highest rated escape game spot in Durham, boasting five stars out of 59 reviews on Yelp.

Bull City Escape. | Photo: Andrea J./Yelp

Bull City Escape Earns 2018 TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence

Bull City Escape has been awarded the 2018 TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence. Bull City Escape is ranked #1 for Fun & Games in Durham, North Carolina.

Now in its 8th year, the Certificate of Excellence designation recognizes establishments that consistently earn great TripAdvisor reviews from travelers.

The Certificate of Excellence accounts for the quality, quantity and recency of reviews submitted by travelers on TripAdvisor over a 12-month period.

Bull City Escape Earns 2017 TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence

Travelers come to TripAdvisor to plan and book the perfect trip. Certificate of Excellence celebrates the accommodations, attractions and eateries that make these perfect trips possible.

Now in its 7th year, the Certificate of Excellence designation recognizes establishments that consistently earn great TripAdvisor reviews from travelers.

The Certificate of Excellence accounts for the quality, quantity and recency of reviews submitted by travelers on TripAdvisor over a 12-month period. To qualify, a business must maintain an overall TripAdvisor bubble rating of at least four out of five, have a minimum number of reviews and must have been listed on TripAdvisor for at least 12 months.

Bull City Escape Named 2017 IndyWeek Best of the Triangle Finalist

INDY Week's Best of the Triangle is an "annual reader-guided tour through 353 of the best things—restaurants, bars, people, places, activities, doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, yoga studios, hiking trails, bike shops, auto repair shops, florists, basically anything and everything that you could possibly be looking for—in the area. This is, bar none, the most comprehensive guide to the coolest local stuff out there, imitators be damned. And that’s because it pulls from the collective wisdom of tens of thousands of readers casting hundreds of thousands of votes."

Bull City Escape was named a Finalist in the "Best Place for Indoor Fun" category - the only escape room to ever be named a Finalist in INDY Week's Best of the Triangle! 

Players Can Escape Technology and The World For an Hour at Bull City Escape (North Carolina Homes)

By Pamela Sosnowski

In today's tech-heavy society people seem to prefer looking down at a screen versus interacting with others. Bull City Escape, however, offers a chance for players to set aside the mobile devices for an hour and use their wits and work with each other to escape a room instead of relying on Google. The Durham-based business currently offers two game scenarios with a third one on the way, and is proving popular with participants of all ages.

"Our escape rooms are fun, challenging, and immersive experiences," owner Alice Cheung said. "They're sort of like real-life video games; in fact, escape rooms evolved from online point-and-click games. However, rather than passively absorbing entertainment form a screen, players actively engage with their team members and the environment around them to achieve a shared goal. They must search for clues, manipulate objects, and solve a series of puzzles, all while a countdown timer looms above, adding an element of pressure to the game."

The current escape rooms to choose from are Lunar Lockdown, where players must escape their crashed spacecraft before it automatically self-destructsand A Study in Murder, which is the tougher of the two games and requires players to solve a whodunit murder mystery. The two games are most suitable for ages 12 and up and must be booked online in advance. Bull City Escape costs $25 a person and is open from Thursday through Sunday and upon request for private groups

Unless a group is large enough to fill up a game, there's a good chance players may be paired with strangers, which means new friendships get formed at Bull City Escape. Each room is designed like a Hollywood movie set and full of clues such as codes, riddles, and combination locks. Lunar Lockdown is set up like a spaceship's control room while A Study in Murder is set in a Victorian-style parlor. A third game, called Enchanted Kingdom, is scheduled to be unveiled later this year.

Cheung has always loved puzzles and was inspired to bring the concept to Durham after participating in an escape game herself. "When I played my first escape game, I knew it'd be a perfect fit for the Triangle and its creative, intelligent population," she said. "In June 2015, Bull City Escape launched in a small, underground room. Word-of-mouth spread like wildfire and within a month, we expanded to a larger location with windows and enough space for 3 escape rooms. We are proud to call Durham home and so grateful for this supportive community."

Bull City Escape isn't just for families and groups of friends. It's been booked by couples and offices for team building exercises. The business has also welcomed student organizations and university employees. If you're looking not just to escape a room but also escape technology and the world for a while, book an hour of engaging fun at Bull City Escape.