Tactical Escape 101: Eau Claire Escape Rooms

08/29/2026

🌧️ WELL… MOTHER NATURE HAS SPOKEN. 🌧️

Apparently Mother Nature looked at everyone’s busy schedules and thought:

“You know what these people need? TIME FOR AN ESCAPE ROOM.” 😂🔐

We tried explaining that we could really use a beautiful, sunny day today…

She disagreed.

So instead, she cleared those outdoor plans right off your schedule. 🤷‍♀️☔

RAINY DAY = TIME TO PLAY!

Grab the family. Text the friends. Find a date. Round up the kids. You suddenly have the PERFECT excuse to spend an hour solving puzzles, laughing together and making some memories INSIDE. ❤️

With Tactical Escape 101 locations in:

📍 Antigo
📍 Stevens Point
📍 Eau Claire
📍 Rice Lake

…there are plenty of reservation times available as of right now!

🎟️ Reserve ahead at TACTICALESCAPE101.COM

OR…

☔ Throw on your raincoat, show up and take your chances on a walk-in!

Either way, let’s play a game together today! 🔐🧩❤️

Thanks for the assist, Mother Nature. We’ll take it from here. 😂

08/28/2026

🐉🔥 DRAGON’S LAIR IS COMING… BUT WE NEED YOUR VOTE! 🔥🐉

We’re putting the finishing touches on Dragon’s Lair, opening in early September 2026, and we’re considering adding a little twist…

WHAT IF YOUR CHOICES ACTUALLY CHANGED THE ENDING? 👀

Should Dragon’s Lair have TWO possible endings?

⚔️ Make the honorable choice… and discover one ending.

😈 Choose the darker path… and things might end VERY differently.

Or should we stop complicating our own lives and just give everyone ONE ending? 😂

YOU DECIDE!

❤️ = YES! TWO ENDINGS!
Give us GOOD vs. BAD and let the players choose their fate!

😆 = ONE ENDING!
Stop creating more work for yourselves and just finish the room already. 😂

👇 CAST YOUR VOTE WITH YOUR REACTION!

🐲 DRAGON’S LAIR opens EARLY SEPTEMBER 2026!

Stay tuned right here for the official launch date, beta-testing announcements, sneak peeks and more!

Your adventure is almost ready.

The question is…

Will you be the hero or give in to the dragon within? 🐉⚔️

08/26/2026

🎄🔐 CHRISTMAS 2026 AT TACTICAL ESCAPE 101! 🔐🎄

Yes, we know it’s August.

No, we don’t care. 😂🎅

The elves are already building, the puzzles are being created, and Christmas is officially creeping into Tactical Escape 101!

And this year, we’ve got FOUR Christmas adventures headed your way!

🎄 EAU CLAIRE — ORNAMENTAL 🎄
📍 Schlegelmilch House • Downtown Eau Claire
🗓️ Opening BLACK FRIDAY

Our annual Christmas tradition continues!

Every year we debut our brand-new holiday escape room inside the beautiful historic Schlegelmilch House, with 25% of the proceeds benefiting the Chippewa Valley Museum!

This year’s all-new adventure is…

✨ ORNAMENTAL ✨

The family is on their way. Find the missing ornaments and finish the tree before they arrive!

🎁 STEVENS POINT — MERRY CHRISTMAS CLUE 🎁
🗓️ Opening in SEPTEMBER

Someone is feeling a little… GRINCHY. 💚

Can you figure out who?

Merry Christmas Clue is headed to Stevens Point this year! Stay tuned for the official opening date and reservations.

🏠 RICE LAKE — CLAUSE FOR CONCERN 🏠
🗓️ Opening around MID-OCTOBER

There’s just one little problem this Christmas…

The bank is about to foreclose on the house. 😳🎄

Your mission: Find the deed before the bank takes the house!

Because apparently saving Christmas wasn’t stressful enough. 😂

🦌 ANTIGO — REINDEER GAMES 🦌
🗓️ Opening in OCTOBER

One of our favorite Christmas games EVER is getting a new home!

Reindeer Games is headed to Antigo for the 2026 Christmas season! ❤️🎅

🎄🎄🎄

Our Christmas rooms will begin opening earlier than usual this year, starting in September and October, with ORNAMENTAL making its grand debut on Black Friday!

Reservations will become available as soon as our opening dates are finalized, so stay tuned to social media for announcements and booking dates.

Four locations.
Four Christmas adventures.
A whole lot of holiday chaos. 😂🎄🔐

We can’t wait to celebrate Christmas 2026 with you!

❤️ Tactical Escape 101

08/25/2026

❤️ Tonight, I’m just grateful.

Over the weekend, I ended up running a few shifts and getting to do one of the things I love most at Tactical Escape 101, running rooms.

I got to be right there, firsthand, helping create the laughter, the connection, the ridiculous moments and the JOY that made me fall in love with this business in the first place.

And a few of those groups did something completely unexpected…

They handed me the Game Master holy grail: a tip. 😂❤️

As the owner, when someone tips me personally, I’m genuinely touched. It is NEVER asked for, required, or expected. It is so far above and beyond that sometimes I don’t even know what to say.

Because here’s something people don’t always see about small business:

This small business giant doesn’t make a lot of profit. It makes a lot of JOY.

And honestly, that’s the biggest reason we keep doing what we do.

But this weekend, your generosity turned into something extra special.

Today I got to splurge and buy my granddaughter something she really, really wanted for school, a brand-new pair of fancy high-top shoes. 👟❤️

Maybe that doesn’t sound like a huge luxury.

For us, it absolutely was.

And tonight, looking at those shoes, I couldn’t help thinking about the people who walked through our doors this weekend and made that little splurge possible.

Every reservation matters.

Every family that comes through our doors matters.

Every birthday, date night, friend group, team outing, laugh, high five, review, recommendation and return visit matters.

You don’t just fuel this business.

You fuel my creativity. You fuel my passion. You fuel the jobs we’ve created. And, in very real little ways, you fuel my family too.

Today it looked like a pair of really cool school shoes for my granddaughter.

And that means more to me than you’ll ever know.

So tonight I go to sleep feeling incredibly grateful for every single one of you who chooses to spend your time, and your hard-earned money, with this little business we created.

Thank you. Truly. ❤️

-Jennifer Fonfara
Owner, Creator & Author
Tactical Escape 101

08/24/2026

🎉 SURPRISE! WE’RE OPENING EARLY! 🎉

We just couldn’t wait any longer…

Our fundraiser escape room at the historic Schlegelmilch House in downtown Eau Claire is opening NOW—the last week of August! 🔐🏠

Come experience one of our most unique puzzle adventures in one of Eau Claire’s most incredible historic settings—all while supporting the Chippewa Valley Museum! ❤️

And this isn’t just a fun night out…

💰 25% of your reservation goes directly to the Chippewa Valley Museum!

So gather your smartest friends, your family, your favorite puzzle people—or that one person who insists they’re “really good at escape rooms” 😂—and come see if you can conquer the Schlegelmilch House!

📅 We’ve added early dates THIS WEEK!
🔐 Reservations are REQUIRED.
⏰ Space is limited and our schedule varies, so check available times online.

🎟️ Make your reservation now at TACTICALESCAPE101.COM

PLAY A PUZZLE. MAKE A MEMORY. SUPPORT LOCAL HISTORY. ❤️

08/23/2026

🎄✨ IT’S HERE, FOLKS! ✨🎄

This year’s Christmas theme for our Chippewa Valley Museum fundraiser at the historic Schlegelmilch House in downtown Eau Claire is…

🥁🥁🥁 DRUMROLL, PLEASE! 🥁🥁🥁

🎄 ORNAMENTAL 🎄

The family is on their way…
Find the missing ornaments and finish the tree before they arrive! 🎁✨

We can’t wait to bring a brand-new Christmas adventure to the Schlegelmilch House, opening BLACK FRIDAY!

🍂 BUT FIRST…

Our fall adventure, THE ENCHANTED ORDER, is back in the basement and OPEN NOW! 🪄

That means TWO seasonal adventures are available to reserve right now:

🍁 THE ENCHANTED ORDER — Playing this fall
🎄 ORNAMENTAL — Opens Black Friday

Come play inside one of Eau Claire’s historic treasures while supporting the Chippewa Valley Museum!

🎟️ Reservations for BOTH adventures are available NOW!

Reserve at TACTICALESCAPE101.COM

08/22/2026

🎒 BACK TO SCHOOL IS COMING… BUT SUMMER ISN’T OVER YET! 🔐

Before the backpacks, practices, homework, and crazy schedules take over, squeeze in one more adventure together!

Now through Labor Day, get 20% OFF ALL ESCAPE ROOMS at our Rice Lake location with code:

🎉 BTS2662 🎉

Choose your adventure:

🙃 Turn your world around in The Upside Down
🌲 Search for The Blue Hills Beast
🔔 Survive Krampus
🏺 Face The Pharaoh’s Curse
🐇 Tumble into The Rabbit Hole
🔎 Or solve the secrets of Mystery Manor

Bring your team. Bring your family. Grab your friends. Make it a date.

Solve together. Laugh together. Get completely stuck together. 😂 Then walk away with something better than another end-of-summer purchase:

❤️ A memory you made together.

20% OFF through Labor Day
Use code BTS2662

🎟️ Reserve your Rice Lake adventure at TACTICALESCAPE101.COM

Summer may be ending. The memories don’t have to. ❤️

08/18/2026

Proud is an understatement. ❤️

The Ice Age Trail is more than a beautiful Wisconsin treasure to us, it’s woven right into our story. The trail literally connects our owner Jennifer’s childhood homes, winds through the communities we love, and passes near so many of the places Tactical Escape 101 has called home.

What an incredible gem to have running through our communities and our state. We’re proud to celebrate it, proud to share it, and especially proud to call Wisconsin home. 🌲🥾❤️

The Ice Age National Scenic Trail runs about 1,200 miles across Wisconsin and never leaves the state. It starts at Potawatomi State Park on the Door Peninsula, curves west and south through the Kettle Moraine, swings past Madison and Devil's Lake, turns north through the central sands, then runs west again to end at Interstate State Park on the St. Croix River. The route is not arbitrary. It traces the farthest edge that the last glacier reached before it stopped and melted back.

That line is the whole point. About 12,000 years ago the Laurentide Ice Sheet sat over most of Wisconsin, in places a mile thick. When it retreated it left behind a debris field of hills, ridges, kettles, eskers and erratic boulders that is among the clearest glacial landscapes anywhere on earth. Geologists study Wisconsin the way they do because the evidence here is so legible. The most recent North American glaciation is literally called the Wisconsin Glaciation.

Walk a stretch of it and the terminology stops being abstract. Kettles are the round depressions and ponds left where buried ice chunks melted out. Kames are the steep conical hills where meltwater dumped sediment down a hole in the ice. Eskers are the long winding ridges of gravel deposited by rivers that ran underneath the glacier, and hiking one feels like walking a raised railroad grade through the woods for no apparent reason. Erratics are boulders the ice carried hundreds of miles and dropped in the middle of a field.

The Kettle Moraine segments southwest of Milwaukee show it best, with terrain that rolls hard for a state most people assume is flat. Devil's Lake is the opposite case, a Baraboo quartzite gorge the glacier plugged at both ends with debris, trapping the lake between five hundred foot bluffs.

The trail was one of the first National Scenic Trails designated by Congress, in 1980, and it is still not finished. Roughly 700 miles are built. The rest is connecting routes along back roads while volunteers and the Ice Age Trail Alliance keep acquiring easements and building tread. Most of the work is done by people with hand tools on weekends.

A few dozen people thru-hike the whole thing each year. Far more do it in pieces, driving out for a Saturday segment. There are eleven counties involved, hundreds of trailheads, and almost all of it is free.

Wisconsin is one of only a handful of states with a national scenic trail entirely inside its borders. This one exists because a glacier stopped here.

08/17/2026

FLASH SALE! Drive and save! Reserve at TACTICALESCAPE101.COM

08/17/2026

It’s a hoot! Reserve at TACTICALESCAPE101.COM