You are invited to an exclusive cocktail party for the rich and powerful at the Charles S. Pillsbury Mansion. Champagne flows, secrets simmer, everyone has something to hide, and then somebody does not survive the evening. That is the premise of the Murder Mystery, the Pillsbury Club’s interactive Roaring Twenties whodunit, and if you have been searching for a murder mystery night in Minneapolis that is not a dinner show in a hotel ballroom, this is the one that starts in a real 1916 mansion and takes to the streets in a vintage trolley.

The case of the missing jewels

How the evening works

The story begins as a glamorous hunt for a notorious jewel thief and, as the tour’s own description puts it, “quickly takes a deadly turn.” You are not an audience. You are a guest at the party and therefore a suspect, and over the course of the night you help interrogate witnesses, watch alliances form and accusations fly, and try to piece together the truth before the killer slips away, or strikes again. The experience moves between locations, with the mansion as its anchor: every tour at the Club begins and ends at 100 East 22nd Street, and the trolley carries the party past real Gilded Age mansions between scenes. Tickets start at $79 and are sold through the tour page, where the calendar shows upcoming dates. The page also carries the warning that this tour is popular and likely to sell out, which in our experience is not marketing.

Dress the part

Guests are encouraged to arrive in their finest Great Gatsby-era attire, and you are welcome to wear your own costume. Beaded dresses, feathered headbands, spats, a pocket watch, a cigarette holder with nothing in it: the Pillsbury Mansion was completed in 1916, so the house itself is dressed for the period already, from the carved English oak to the leaded glass. Nobody will check your hemline at the door, but a room full of people who committed to the bit is a better party, and a better alibi.

Before and after: cocktails at the Club

The Pillsbury Club is a private, members-style club open to guests with a reservation, and the reservation is the important word: book a table before or after your mystery rather than hoping to walk in. The speakeasy-style bar and the dining room are where the evening properly begins, and we have written up what you can eat and drink if you want to plan a pre-crime supper. For a group that wants its own room to compare theories in private, the Emerald Suite on the second floor seats up to ten and can be booked through the club rooms page. One practical note from the tour’s own rules: only bottled water comes aboard the trolley, so the cocktails stay at the mansion, which is one more reason to arrive early and linger late.

Who is this for?

The tour page calls it “perfect for groups, parties, and a fun night out,” and that matches what we see. Birthday groups who have done the escape rooms. Couples who want a date with a plot. Work teams that would rather accuse each other of murder in a mansion than in a conference room. We have already made the case for the Club as a bachelorette party destination, and the Murder Mystery is the natural centerpiece for one. If your group is large, private charters and group tours are available for special events through the group tours page, so an entire office or wedding party can have the mansion, the trolley and the corpse to itself.

The house has secrets of its own

Part of what makes a murder mystery here work is that the setting is not a set. The Pillsbury Mansion really was built for one of the richest families in Minneapolis, in an era when fortunes were made in flour and spent on imported English rooms, and it has passed through more lives since than most plots manage: a seminary, an art society, an advertising agency, a training center, and now the Club. We keep the long version in the History Journal, including what “Gilded Age” actually means and why the trolley tour is named for it. Photography inside the Club is welcome for guests, as we explained in our photo policy post, so the evidence you gather can include selfies.

Plan your night

Check the Murder Mystery page for dates and tickets, then plan your visit to the Club for the drinks on either side; our directions and parking guide covers how to get to 100 East 22nd Street. Out-of-town sleuths can stay a few blocks from downtown at 300 Clifton, a 1906 mansion in Loring Park with a speakeasy of its own in the cellar, or by the week at Oakland’s on 9th. Bring your wits, your best 1920s outfit and a healthy suspicion of everyone at the bar. In this house, no one is innocent.

Keep reading: Does the Minneapolis Holiday Lights Trolley Sell Out? How Far Ahead to Book the Naughty and Nice Rides From the Pillsbury Club