Mystery Cafe started in the basement of a dive bar in Central Square, Cambridge (near Boston) in April, 1987. I was one of the original cast members. We had no idea what we were doing. We all kind of collaborated on how we would work a three course meal into a participatory murder mystery comedy.

There were no interactive dinner theaters around yet, there was no template for any of this stuff.

Anyway, our "theater" sat about 70 people. We hired a guy from Syria who spoke no English to cater the shows. We came up with the idea of "Bribe Money" as a way to make people feel more comfortable engaging the actors.  We didn't add the "Clue Packets" until a couple weeks after we opened.