Overview
Remember when hotels were just for vacationing and staycationing in? Of course you do. That's still the standard setup, but Hijinx Hotel isn't really a hotel. Newly opened on the top level of Chermside shopping centre, it's actually an OTT challenge room bar with an accommodation theme. Think: The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Shining's Overlook Hotel mixed with Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, all with puzzles and games to play inside its doors (and drinks to sip while you're doing so).
Hailing from Funlab — the company behind Strike, Holey Moley, Archie Brothers Cirque Electriq, and B Lucky and Sons — Hijinx Hotel first launched in Sydney in mid-2022. Then, last December, it opened its doors in Surfers Paradise as well. Now it's Brisbane's turn, and in a space that's been undergoing quite the revamp — with Event Cinemas sporting a hefty makeover (complete with a glam new bar) and boozy mini golf venue Holey Moley another recent addition.
If you're new to the concept, it takes all that eye-catching and nostalgia-dripping theming, then uses it to give the escape-room concept a game-fuelled twist. Throw in cocktails and it's aiming to be the ultimate in kidulting fun, aka Funlab's adult-focused twist on sleuthing your way through various spaces with a beverage or several in your hand.
Opening its doors at Chermside on Friday, March 31, Hijinx Hotel forms a mini game-fuelled — and 350-person-capacity — precinct alongside Holey Moley. On the challenge room side of things, patrons can expect ten game rooms filled with entertaining things to do. That includes two brand-new spaces that haven't been seen at other sites: Battleship, based on the submarine-themed game, which involves trying to sink ships for points; and Cute as a Button, a new version of its Who Meme game, where you'll solve cartoon puzzles that feature characters from your childhood.
Chermside also boasts the Big-style piano room with a giant keyboard across the floor, ball pits and a giant version of Scrabble.
Basically, the whole site is a bar decked out like a hotel, but getting attendees to complete challenges rather than get a-slumbering in its various spaces. It also gleans inspiration from all those supremely Instagrammable pop-up installations that include ball pits, but this one is sticking around Brissie permanently. And, it's home to bars for cocktail-drinking opportunities, nods to New York hotels in its facade, and just generally overflows with homages to movies and board games from the 80s and 90s.
Shaking off your regular routine is clearly the name of the game here, and partying like you would've before you were old enough to drink alcohol — but with the hard stuff definitely on offer. That all starts when you enter via the faux hotel lobby bar, which is full of colour and surrealist touches. Instead of merely checking in, though, that's where you'll find cocktails.
As for the not-quite-hotel rooms themselves, you gain access by heading to reception t0 pick up a swipe card.
Also a highlight: those creative cocktails, breaking up all that kidulting with drinks like the Bubble and Pop and the Penthouse Party. Some of the venue's tipples are designed to share, most of them look ace on your Instagram feed, and there's also a range of non-alcoholic drinks — and food to line your stomach.
Now that Hijinx Hotel is open at Chermside, Funlab sports 14 venues across Queensland, all aiming to make you forget your age.
Find Hijinx Hotel at Chermside shopping centre, on the corner Gympie and Hamilton roads, Chermside, from Friday, March 31 — and head to the Hijinx Hotel website for further details.