Embracing spooky season: La Grange’s Just Escape Room adds new ‘haunted’ experience ahead of Halloween

An escape room in La Grange is embracing the spooky season this year, recently adding a new room pitting participants in a race against time to destroy a sinister doll.

Just Escape Room, located at 512 W. Burlington Ave., opened in 2017. Jordan Couch, 23, bought the business in 2023 with the hope of revitalizing the experience and building more rooms.

Haunted Doll Shop, which debuted last week, is his latest brain child.

“Haunted Doll Shop just popped in my head because my mom had a creepy doll at home that my nieces and nephews just did not like,” Couch said. “And I thought about it and thought, that would make a really good prop for an escape room.”

The result is an experience where visitors have to break a curse and destroy a doll before time is up. It’s one of three rooms at Just Escape Room, including Floor 66 that has a futuristic theme and The Attic, which involves treasure hunting in an attic.

According to Couch, some escape rooms purchase stories and sets designed by other companies. At Just Escape Room, everything is designed and built by Couch himself.

“When it comes to building and electronics, I am all self-taught,” Couch said. “I like to just learn things on the side. With this Haunted Doll Shop room, I took the chance to buy all the tools I needed to start actually crafting and building my own props.”

Just Escape Room is one of many similar experiences in the area, but Couch says he doesn’t view other escape rooms as competition.

“Once you do an escape room in a place and, say, you complete all of my rooms,” Couch said. “You technically can’t come back to me, so you would have to go do another escape room and another location.”

Just Escape Room charges $33 per person on weekdays and $36 on weekends for the 60-minute experience. Rooms can be booked in advance at justescaperoom.com/ or (708) 304-0007.

Some other escape rooms in the Chicago suburbs worth checking out include:

Mastermind Escape Games

999 Plaza Drive and 1015 E. State Parkway, Suite 200, Schaumburg, mastermindescapegames.com/escape-room-schaumburg-illinois/

At Mastermind’s State Parkway location, there’s new room set in the hills of Kentucky, where players meet an old man and wind up locked in his cabin. A separate room is titled Bank Heist. Adult tickets for an hourlong experience in any of the four rooms cost around $35. The 999 Plaza Drive location offers five escape rooms, including Graveyard Escape, Jack The Ripper and Dracula.

60 To Escape

5 Woodfield Mall, D215, Schaumburg, 62escape.com/schaumburg

At 60 To Escape in Woodfield Mall, contestants can choose from six different rooms for around $45 per person. Options include a dinosaur-themed room, as well as one titled Arctic Expedition that’s centered around the mythical yeti.

Escape The Room

60 Oakbrook Center, Oak Brook, escapetheroom.com/chicago/

Escape The Room provides lots of options for larger groups of around eight or nine people. Experiences include a room where players have to stop an evil scientist from spreading a pandemic and one with time travel set in a clock tower. Prices are around $37 per person.

Mind Trap Escape Rooms

299 Montgomery Road, Montgomery, mindtrapescaperooms.com/

With nine escape rooms ranging from 60-75 minutes, there are a variety of themes (Jurassic Escape, Mafia Heist, Locked Up Supermax, Pharoah’s Chamber) and difficulty levels that would appeal to novices and thrill-seekers alike. And one of the rooms, Escape Doctor Death, uses optional live actors. Prices start around $32 per person.

Escapology

15830 S. Harlem Ave., Orland Park, escapology.com/en/orland-park-il

Escapology has many rooms, some themed for kids and others for adults. Highlights include a Scooby-Doo theme, “Batman: The Dark Knight Challenge” and one based on Agatha Christie’s “Murder On The Orient Express.” Prices vary based on room and party size.