Best places for adult birthday parties in NEPA

Photo courtesy of Unsplash.

By Kalena Thomhave

July 31, 2024

No matter your age, you can grab your friends and celebrate your birthday in style in NEPA.

So maybe you haven’t thrown a birthday party in a couple of decades — unless we’re talking the princess party for your two-year-old that involved as much event planning as a wedding. But we mean a birthday party for yourself!

While you could celebrate your special day with a house party or a dinner party (how adult of you), you could also leave the party planning to the good people running some of northeastern Pa.’s most enviable establishments and amusing attractions. After all, birthday parties are not just for tiny princesses.

We’ve put together a list of ideas for where you can host your next adult birthday party in NEPA, whether you’re celebrating yourself or a friend. You’re never too old to celebrate a birthday!

The Games Party

If you like playing games — arcade games, board games, escape room games, and the like — you have a multitude of options for hosting an adult birthday party in NEPA. You might have hosted a birthday party at an arcade when you were a kid — or perhaps you have recently hosted one for your kid. But rather than awkwardly take over a kids arcade for your birthday party, we recommend seeking out arcades geared toward adults.

For example, Dave & Buster’s opened a location in Moosic, near Scranton, just this spring. To book a party at Dave & Buster’s, you first fill out a form on the company’s website. “Adult birthday” is included among the “party type” options in one of the form’s drop-down menus — so adult birthday parties are events Dave & Buster’s is used to hosting!

A locally owned option is Bartari, a downtown Scranton restaurant and bar that is also home to dozens of retro arcade games, including pinball machines. Many restaurant dishes and bar drinks are also inspired by 1980s and 1990s game characters, like Yoshi’s Bloomin’ Apple or the Electric Smurf cocktail. To book your party, reach out to Bartari.

Escape rooms are live adventure games in which your group is trapped in a room and must solve puzzles together before time runs out in order to escape. They’re also perfect for adult birthday parties, as many escape rooms are designed for advanced minds (read: adults) and your group can have a lot of fun together. Breakout Escape Room in Wilkes-Barre has five different rooms to choose from while Big Screen Escapes has locations in Mount Pocono and Tannersville, each with three unique rooms.

Finally, if you’re more interested in tabletop games, you might want to host an adult birthday party at Lehighton’s Jokers Are Wild Game Cafe, which has a tabletop board game library, a restaurant, and even its own escape room. For parties, you pay $9 per guest for an hour using the board game library and an hour in the game cafe’s escape room.

The Sophisticated Party

If your birthday is a chance for you to feel fancy, it just might be the perfect opportunity to indulge in the famous resorts of the Pocono Mountains. For a milestone birthday, you could plan a weekend getaway at a resort, indulging in upscale hotel rooms and fine dining.

Skytop Lounge in Skytop will plan your special event and make it one to remember! And The French Manor Inn and Spa in South Sterling offers a package called the “Girlfriends’ Spa Retreat Package” that includes lodging, food, and spa treatments. Of course, resort getaways cost a pretty penny, but you can also host your adult birthday party at resorts without staying overnight. Most resorts, for example, also sell spa packages so that you and yours can pamper yourselves for just a couple of hours. And rather than spend the whole day at the spa, you could simply select individual spa treatments like facials, massages, or pedicures.

You can also feel refined by combining your adult birthday party with a tea service (pinky out optional). Rose Cottage in Montrose hosts afternoon tea in the American Victorian style in a rose-colored 1865 home. And the tea service is just lovely. Each month, Rose Cottage rotates its menu theme, which may be based on a place (a French-inspired menu), person (a Jane Austen-inspired menu), or event. August 2024’s menu is “A Palace Tea,” with recipes inspired by a former personal chef to the royal family. You can expect savory eats and sweet treats alongside your tea. Just reach out to Rose Cottage about bringing a group!

You can also head to the coffee-shop-style spot The Tea Room, located within SoulWorks Collective, a yoga studio in Hamlin. The menu of tea sandwiches and specialty teas is à la carte, making The Tea Room more of a casual space than that of many expensive, hoity-toity tea rooms in other regions. However, you can still bring a group to celebrate your birthday; simply reach out to The Tea Room about hosting a party!

The Sporty Party

If you and your friends like the outdoors, you can host a river adventure for your adult birthday party on the Delaware, Susquehanna, or Lehigh Rivers. Whitewater enthusiasts can book a rafting tour on the Delaware or Lehigh Rivers, each with exciting rapids that are still easy enough for you to bring friends with varying experience on the river.

For example, Whitewater Rafting Adventures in Nesquehoning leads trips navigating class II and III rapids on the Lehigh River for either 11 or 13 miles, depending on the trip you choose.

Meanwhile, the Susquehanna River is perfect for a more relaxing river trip by kayak or canoe. While river outfitters might not plan your party for you, all you really need to do is figure out how long you want to be on the water and then book your trip — and maybe pack a picnic. You can also look for special outings hosted by rental operators, like the “pizza and paddle” trip led by Susquehanna Kayak & Canoe Rentals of Falls that includes 5 miles on the Susquehanna as well as a pizza dinner with beer.

If you’d rather play some sports from the comfort of the indoors, you could plan a party at The Wake Zone in Tafton, where you can play golf via a state-of-the-art golf simulator while enjoying Wallenpaupack Brewing Company beers from the onsite taproom. But The Wake Zone actually has more than just golf — you can also play simulation bowling, dodgeball, soccer, frisbee, baseball, disc golf, and hockey! Reach out to The Wake Zone’s events manager to start planning your adult birthday party there.

The Dinner Party

The dinner party is certainly more of a traditional adult birthday party. And while you could throw a dinner party at home, you could also leave the cooking to NEPA’s talented chefs!

You can inquire with your favorite NEPA restaurant about whether they can host your private event. And if you need more ideas, here is just a sampling of NEPA restaurants and bars where you can book an adult birthday party: