Mindworks: Soggy Bottom Bakery | Review

​Your local rival kitchen, The Soggy Bottom Bakery, have been sweeping up awards and stealing your customers for years… all for their famous, unfairly delicious “Soggy Sausage Roll™”! Enough is enough, for crying out loud!!! It’s time to sneak-in, discover and steal the secret ingredient for yourselves! Throw on your aprons, stir up some chaos and prepare to WHISK it all for the perfect sausage roll!

Date Played: January 2026
Time Taken: 28 minutes (and we broke the record!)
Number of Players: 4
Difficulty: Hard

After three rooms at Mindworks, we finished our day with their newest offering, Soggy Bottom Bakery. Given how much fun we’d had with Trapped for Cash, I had high hopes for this one, and I’m delighted to say it absolutely delivered. This was my favourite room of the day, and easily makes my top five rooms in the UK!

Rise to the Occasion

We started in the room itself, which was a nice bookend to our first game of the day. However, as we knew we were starting in the room I think we were slightly distracted looking around and already solving puzzles during the briefing. I actually solved one within the first ten seconds! The briefing and scene setting felt a little too long, though I appreciated how enthusiastic and fun our gamemaster was, staying perfectly in character throughout and even at the end.

Once we properly got started, I was immediately struck by just how immersive the set was. It didn’t feel like a room with some bakery props, but rather that we were actually in a bakery (that just happened to be an escape room). This is the most immersive room I’ve experienced for quite some time anywhere, particularly in the UK. The room is scented with gingerbread, which was pleasant without being overwhelming, less strong than an airwick purifier but enough to really add to the atmosphere. It’s a complete sensory experience, with puzzles for nearly every sense other than taste.

One puzzle required us to bang out a tune on kitchen utensils. Another had us matching up different scents. Yet another involved throwing different baked goods into appropriate buckets. Every puzzle was perfectly themed to fit the bakery setting, and it’s rare that this happens so well. Similar to Trapped for Cash, the signposting for each puzzle was clear, so we could focus on actually solving them rather than trying to work out what we were meant to be doing.

A Recipe for Success

The room itself was fairly large, with unique ways of moving between rooms that were mostly unexpected, such as crawling through a hidden compartment. Each time we moved between areas it was via a different method, in a surprising and unexpected manner, which kept the sense of discovery and excitement high throughout.

There was plenty to do, and we didn’t feel like we were stepping on each other’s toes at all, or even having to split into pairs as we had in previous rooms. The puzzles were quite physical, requiring us to interact with elements that were also perfectly themed with the room. This made a nice change from using padlocks or electronic elements and added to the immersion. There were quite a few dexterity puzzles, which aren’t personally my favourite, but luckily someone else in my team enjoyed them. One required using tongs to move items within a display case with a limited range of movement, which I would have found frustrating, but my teammate was happy to tackle it while the rest of us worked on other things.

We did overthink a couple of puzzles. There were times I was thinking the answer was more complicated or convoluted than it actually was, searching for a hidden pattern when all we had to do was place some objects somewhere. Apparently the owner had initially considered adding in the pattern requirement though, so potentially that could be an option to make the game slightly harder for more experienced teams in future.

It was also easy to miss others solving puzzles or opening new areas, so we definitely had to communicate with each other to keep everyone informed about what was happening. This wasn’t a problem, just something to be aware of.

The Cherry on Top

The ending was nice and clear, with a very obvious fanfare and achievement moment. Our gamemaster entered the room thematically to congratulate us, staying perfectly in character, which was a lovely touch after some of the more lacklustre endings we’d experienced earlier in the day.

We broke the record at 28 minutes, and the gamemaster was extremely excited, as were the owners. They were really interested in our opinions and how we’d found the room, which made the whole experience feel even more special.

Accessibility

This room is not really wheelchair accessible, as it’s up some stairs. At least one person needs to be able to crawl and traverse tight spaces to access other sections, though once they’ve done so they can open easier routes for others. There are puzzles involving most of the senses, including music, smell, and some physical challenges. Be aware that the room is scented with gingerbread.

Soggy Bottom Bakery | The Verdict

This was an absolute triumph. The theming was perfect, the set was the most immersive I’ve experienced at Mindworks, and every puzzle fit beautifully into the bakery setting. The variety of sensory puzzles kept things interesting, and the unique ways of moving between rooms added genuine surprise and delight throughout. At just under £30 per person with our multi room discount, this was definitely worth every penny.

Given that it’s new, I wouldn’t be surprised if this room ranks highly in the top room lists this year. I would definitely recommend travelling for this one. It’s creative, immersive, and enormous fun from start to finish.

I also want to give a special shout out to the Mindworks team in general, specifically Olive and Jamie. The team were really helpful in getting our bookings set up for our group of seven, switching between rooms, and were flexible with times during the day. Jamie was great to talk to about his ideas behind the rooms, giving us a peek behind the curtain into the design process and even sharing that he’d considered making some puzzles harder. However, it was Olive who really made the day special. Each time we finished a room she was excited to talk to us about how we’d found it, and was so enthusiastic about our results. She had the exact energy you want from someone running an escape room – infectious enthusiasm, genuine excitement for our achievements, and a real eagerness to celebrate with us. I wish I could have spent all day talking to her! Mindworks deserve so much success and popularity, and I can’t wait to see what they do next!

Soggy Bottom Bakery can be booked in Worthing by heading to Mindworks’ website here.