PREVIEW: Ring in the New Year with Murder at the Mystery Café

In what can only be called the natural result of too many holiday Hallmark Specials, The Mystery Café is now serving murder mysteries over dinner at two Twin Cities area locations.

Holidays got you down? Does spending too much enforced time with family make you wish you could, well, kill someone? If so, you might want to consider an alternative – like attending one of The Mystery Café’s holiday shows in January.

Despite a 1-month special investigation this holiday season, *The X-Mas Files* investigators were ultimately unable to stop the string of murders plaguing The Mystery Café’s shows.

For the uninitiated, The Mystery Café – which bills itself as the “Twin Cities’ Original Comedy Who-dunnit Dinner Theater” – has been killing off hundreds of characters and feeding audiences dinner for 35 years in the Upper Midwest. (That’s about three times as long as Murder, She Wrote was on the air.)

With such an impressive pedigree of, well, murders on the premises, you might be right to be suspicious. In fact, investigators have been working to connect the company to several unsolved persons cases and delicious dessert consumption. However, its last show, The X-mas Files, closed in December without prosecutors filing any charges.

With no break in the cases (yet), you can find The Mystery Café splitting time between its two homes at Majestic Oaks Golf Club in Ham Lake and Great Wolf Lodge in Bloomington. Thus, a good case of murder with a side of steak and wedding cake can be had for a 30-minute drive (dinner included with your show tickets) from Minneapolis or St. Paul.

What exactly is on the murder menu? In January, audiences can settle down in Bloomington for the classic I’ll Be Homicidal For Christmas, following faded 1970s star Albee Humphrey trying to rekindle the magic with a Network Holiday special. Naturally, someone dies.

Big hair and TV not your thing? Turn that car north to Ham Lake for Mystery Cafe’s ‘Til Death Do Us Die, where the bewitching redhead Nissa Nordland heads to the altar in a new show opening this weekend at the Majestic Oaks Golf Course. Heartbreak amongst bachelors is assured – but who’s going to die?

Actor Nissa Nordland stars as the bride in *‘Til Death Do Us Die*, The Mystery Café’s newest show, opening this Friday, Jan. 5 in Ham Lake, MN.

In the company’s shows, audiences work to spot clues, guess who’s going down, how many bodies will hit the floor, and ultimately solve the whodunit, all while enjoying dinner. (Don’t worry, there’s time to get your entrée before putting on your best Poirot moustache.)

Whichever show you choose, dinner and murder are yours for the low price of $69.50, plus local tax & service fees.

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Tickets include dinner and show, available at: https://www.themysterycafe.com/

An invitation/announcement for *‘Til Death Do Us Die*, running January 5-February 17 at Majestic Oaks Golf Club in Ham Lake, MN.

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Amy Donahue

Amy Donahue is a staff reviewer at the Twin Cities Arts Reader. She interned with the magazine during the summer of 2017, served as a guest contributor while studying abroad in Europe that fall, and has moved up to regular old reviewing. She served as interim Editor-in-Chief in 2023.

She admits to being at least 50% terrified of contemporary German opera.