To be transported to a fantastical, Japanese-inspired underground world, Utahns only need to descend a set of grungy stairs and open an unmarked door in downtown Salt Lake City.
A single step inside the subway vestibule of Himitsu Station, an immersive escape room located underneath the historic Peery Hotel at 110 W. Broadway, is enough to hook a visitor — what with its flickering lights and sounds of a subway platform.
The husband-and-wife duo who crafted the adventure — Jaysen and Destiny Batchelor — want visitors to feel like they are stepping into a different world.
“Himitsu means ‘secret’ in Japanese,” Jaysen explains, standing in front of a subway map he created with a graphic designer. “It’s [a] secret station.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Destiny Batchelor, right, and Jaysen Batchelor, the creators and owners of Himitsu Station.
The imaginary universe the Batchelors created resides in a public park in Japan, Jaysen said, but it exists between worlds. A place that appears and disappears. A constantly flickering pin.
“You stumble upon the secret station, and then you end up going through a gateway into another [place],” Destiny said. “A spirit world, basically”.
It’s a spirit world where humans aren’t supposed to go, something to keep in mind as visitors navigate through the experience.
Destiny and Jaysen have long been fans of immersive entertainment. Think theme parks, for example. It’s a world they’ve been wanting to get into for a while, and starting small with an escape room was a good entry point for them.
Crafting Himitsu Station
For the better part of two years, they’ve been crafting the “forgotten gateway” of Himitsu Station, which consists of three different rooms with puzzles that wanderers have to solve, as well as the front vestibule and lobby. Every inch of it has been handcrafted.
Though the Batchelors have never been to Japan, they were inspired by a Youtube video they saw on a tiny electronics shop and its owner, Shimayama Koichi. The shop was located in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, in a marketplace under the Akihabara Station. The district is renowned for its electronics and pop culture ware.
Because of the amount of merchandise Koichi had, he had to crawl through a tiny door to get into his shop.
It’s a feature that’s been incorporated into Himitsu Station’s marketplace, which features an electronics, tea, toy and video game shop. It’s a kaleidoscope of neon lights, exposed concrete and wiring, with so much to take it, it’s easy to just stand in the room and look around.
“If you were to look up photos of his shop,” Jaysen said, “[our] door has the same scratches on it and everything.”
That’s just one example of the attention to detail that the couple has put into Himitsu Station. Everything inside it is a culmination of two years of searching, planning and thrifting. They took 85 separate, two-hour trips to thrift stores around Utah, and bought a lot of items from Amazon Japan before tariffs hit.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A newspaper that also serves as a clue inside Himitsu Station.
“We did so much research,” Destiny said. “We have what we call the ‘Bible’. It’s this binder filled with reference photos.”
The Batchelors watched Japanese films, looked at architecture and analyzed shows to figure out different kinds of props they could use for their set dressing.
Adventurers who go through Himitsu Station meet a cast of characters, or as Jaysen calls them, “mischievous spirits” — Mr. Goro the frog, Nobuyuki the furnace, and Yutaka the ramen shop owner.
Putting together the puzzles
Destiny said she and her husband spent six months huddling together at a coffee shop, brainstorming the puzzles.
“The thing is, we wanted it to feel like we wanted the puzzles to progressively get harder,” she said, “so that way the puzzles can challenge everyone.”
As visitors solve the puzzles, they collect “soul coins,” a core part of the Himitsu world and a way for them to gain points. Unlike other escape rooms, Himitsu Station is more fun than scary, and the level of detail makes it stand out.
There’s a Japanese pay phone Jaysen opened up and rewired to use for one of the puzzles. In the ramen shop, Destiny created hyperrealistic molds of vegetables out of resin. The hand-painted carrots, ginger, and other ingredients look real enough to take a bite out of. For Yutaka’s classic rainbow ramen, Destiny even made pink, orange, blue and yellow colored dough.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Jaysen Batchelor talks about the subway map in the waiting area.
Aside from the props, all of the music that you hear inside Himitsu Station is original, created by two composers the Batchelors hired. The couple has also had help from freelancers for tech, painting and other aspects as they built everything from scratch.
They even designed a Japanese newspaper visitors get to take home, which features stories about things happening at Himitsu Station.
The Batchelors have a space of 6,000 square feet and are currently only using half of it for their escape room experience, though they hope to expand in the future.
Tickets to Himitsu Station cost $65-$75 per person, depending on what day you book them. In the two months the experience has been open, the Batchelors say they’ve found that a group of six is the perfect amount for everyone to have a fun experience.
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