…with two childhood friends, Terry Rolapp and Tommy Wallach. Terry and Tommy met in 1998, at an NYU summer program for high-school kids interested in writing musical theater. Here they are, looking sleepy:

Sleepy Teens.jpg

In the summer of 2016, Terry and Tommy did their first escape room (for the enthusiasts out there, it was Cold War Bunker at Room Escape Live in West Hollywood), and immediately decided they had to build one of their own. As luck would have it, Tommy had become a New York Times bestselling author, and Terry had just enrolled in the UCLA Executive MBA program. With the help of five of his classmates, Hatch was born.

At hatch, we believe escape rooms are an art.

We believe that escape rooms represent a new and unique artistic medium. We believe that people are tired of digital experiences, of spending the whole day tethered to their phones and their computers. We love escape rooms because they're physical and analog, because they require communication and collaboration.

We plan to design and build the best rooms in the world.

From both from a technological and a narrative perspective, we want to move this brave new art form forward, to create experiences so entertaining, engaging, and (dare we say it?) thought-provoking, that people leave Hatch feeling as if they've just seen a great movie or theater piece. 

In the months and years to come, we hope to build a lot more rooms at our headquarters at 1919 3rd Avenue. So come on by. We can’t wait to share our vision with you.