The Lockup

Last night I went to a really fun restaurant in Hiroshima called The Lockup.

I heard about this place from my friend Kazumi a couple of weeks ago. All I knew was that it was a restaurant with a prison theme. Ahhh....she had me at theme. I'm the type of person who needs to know what I'm getting myself into though so I jumped on the computer and Googled it. After reading a few blog posts about it and checking out their website, I couldn't wait to go! I was slightly confused about a few things though. It is a prison theme, but there was something about monsters and ghosts... so I thought, maybe it was a haunted prison theme.. ? Then I looked at the menu and the drinks are served in beakers and test tubes. So...is it a haunted prison with a mad scientist lab? Now I REALLY couldn't wait to go.

The restaurant is located on the 4th floor of the building that is located right across the street from the Don Quijote store. Their phone number is 082-546-2550. Their address is Granporuto Bldg 4F, 6-1 Shintenchi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima-shi. If you know where Molly Malone's is, it's about a 3-minute walk from Molly Malone's.

We arrived at the building and took the elevator to the 4th floor. When we stepped off of the elevator, we weren't really sure what we had gotten ourselves into. This sign was posted on the wall, telling us to push the button so we did..

You can't see the button in the picture, but it's below the sign.
Soo...we pushed the button, and we waited.
















I wasn't sure what to expect, but a guy dressed up like a police officer came out with a clipboard and asked if we had reservations.

Once he verified our reservations, he opened a door for us and told us to go in. We walked into a dark room and listened to a recording that was basically welcoming us to The Lockup and telling us to enter at our own risk... the voice was kind of creepy. I think we were told to wave our hand over something, but we didn't really pay attention so I don't think we quite did what we were supposed to do (oops!). The door then opened and we were told to come out. Once we stepped out we were asked who in our group had done something bad. Well....we all pointed at our friend Cynthia (sorry Cynthia!!). You will have to give up someone in your group. I won't tell you what happens to the person who is thrown under the bus....but it's pretty funny. Well, it was funny for us. Maybe not so much for Cynthia.

After that we were taken to our table, which was in a cell. Complete with bars! They have cells in different sizes. Ours was big enough for a party of six, but the cell across from us was only big enough for two people.

We had pre-ordered a set that included all-you-can-drink, but you can also order from the menu once you get there. That is what I plan on doing the next time I go. There were some items on the menu that I really wanted to try that weren't included in our set. The items we did get were pretty tasty though and we were happy with the amount of food we got too.

The bag was full of delicious french fries and the black things looked like burnt fried chicken, but they didn't taste burnt at all. To the left were some takoyaki (balls of dough with a chunk of octopus), but there was a catch with these. There was one out of the four that had tabasco sauce in it. They don't tell you which one has it so whoever gets it, gets a little surprise when they eat it. Luckily, I did not get the one with tabasco sauce in it.

One of the things I would have loved to try that wasn't included in our set was this -

It's a tuna and avocado spider! There were quite a few interesting dishes throughout the menu. I should let you know that they do not have English menus, but there are pictures of everything.








Aside from having interesting food items, they also have some really interesting drinks. Complete with eyeballs....

After we had been there for almost two hours, the lights went out and sirens started to go off. Someone was announcing that the monsters had gotten loose and were invading the prison. WHAT?!?! What does that mean??? Well, you will have to go see for yourself because there is no way my description of what happened over the next 10 or 15 minutes will do it justice. I will say that the monsters probably won't forget us.... there may or may not have been some dancing in our cell. Ahem...With one of the scary creatures...

Reservations are highly recommended if you plan on going on a Friday or Saturday night. Definitely a fun place to go to with a group of friends! They will also do a little something special if you let them know ahead of time that you have someone celebrating their birthday in your party. They didn't seem to have anyone who spoke English so you will probably need some help to make reservations and you'll have to be a little adventurous when you eat there. Don't let that stop you though. It's definitely a must try!

This might help a little when planning your dinner at this fun place! Sorry I forgot to include this in my original post.

Hours -
MONDAY - THURSDAY 1700-0100
FRIDAY & SATURDAY 1600-0500
SUNDAY & HOLIDAY 1700-2400