Sparks Steak House Escape Room

Five Families escape room guide · 210 East 46th Street, Midtown · December 16, 1985

Four men in white trench coats. Twenty minutes until Paul Castellano's Lincoln pulls up. The Sparks Steak House is one of the Five Families escape rooms: a 3D recreation of a real scene from mob history that you walk around as your own mobster, searching for evidence and cracking a four-digit padlock before the clock runs out. This guide covers the real story behind the room, what you'll find inside, and how to get out.

The real story

The Sparks hit was planned for weeks. Four shooters, backup men and getaway drivers, with Gotti and Gravano watching from a car nearby.

Gotti and Sammy Gravano watched from a Lincoln across the street. When they saw Castellano's car arrive, they radioed the team to go.

Midtown pavements were packed that evening. A week before Christmas, the shooters blended in with shoppers and commuters.

Castellano knew Gotti resented him. He came to Sparks anyway, for a meeting with other family members.

Several witnesses photographed the scene at Sparks. The FBI spent years identifying every face in those images.

Several participants in the Castellano hit were never publicly identified. Some walked away clean. Others were caught years later through phone records.

Setting the scene

It's 5:30pm on a cold Monday. Paul Castellano is due at Sparks for a dinner meeting in twenty minutes. You're one of four men in white trench coats positioned outside the restaurant.

You weren't supposed to be here. Gotti made the call without Commission approval. If this goes wrong — or right — everything changes.

The hit has been planned to the minute. But there's a problem. Someone left something behind at the staging point that connects back to the organisation. You have minutes before Castellano's car arrives.

Start at the Third Avenue corner where the team gathered. Work east along 46th Street past the restaurant door, then on to the corner of Second Avenue where the cars are waiting. The builders' gate on that corner is padlocked, and it's your way off the street. Clear everything and crack it before the Lincoln turns into 46th Street.

Before you get inside, you make your own way there. Drive yourself through Midtown in the Christmas snow, shop windows lit up either side, and pull in on East 46th Street. A green arrow shows you the door.

Three rooms in one

The Sparks Steak House isn't one room, it's three, and you only see the next one once you've earned it. Each has three things to search. Search everything in the room you're in and a door unlocks, a glowing arrow shows you the way through, and the next part of the scene opens up. The clock keeps running the whole time: 5 minutes for all three.

The padlock code is spread across all three, so you can't escape from Third Avenue corner. Move fast in the first room: the last room is where people run out of time.

What you'll find in each room

There are 9 things to search in the Sparks Steak House, three in each room. 4 of them hide a digit of the padlock code, 2 are dead ends put there to waste your time, and the rest fill in the story. The notepad by the phone, the matchbook on the pavement and the matchbook stay locked until you've found 3 clues. The folded newspaper, the pale trench coat and the builders' gate stay locked until you've found 6 clues.

First room: Third Avenue corner

Second room: Outside Sparks

Third room: Second Avenue corner

Sparks Steak House escape room walkthrough

1. Take in the room. Drag to look around and walk with the stick or arrow keys. Question marks show everything you can search.
2. Clear each room. Search all three things in Third Avenue corner and the way through to Outside Sparks unlocks. Clear that and you're into Second Avenue corner. Follow the glowing arrow to the next door.
3. Find the four digits. Each piece of evidence that matters gives you one digit, and tells you which position it goes in. Stuck? The hints below point you to the right room, not the answer.
4. Ignore the red herrings. Some items look important and aren't. Don't spend the clock on them.
5. Open the padlock with the four digits in order, before the 5 minutes run out.
6. Make the call. You'll choose how it ends: Stay on the street — maintain your position; Slip the coat and walk — you were never here; Find everything, destroy it, then walk north. Each ending tells you what really happened.

Tips for escaping

• Read each piece of evidence to the end: the digit is usually in the last line.
• If the clock's getting away from you, a hint costs 25 Mob Coins and an extra minute costs 50.
• Holding a drink or a cigar from the Social Club gives you 20 extra seconds in every room.
• On a phone, turn it sideways for a wider view. Your evidence, digits and the padlock are in the pull-out case file.

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Questions

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