Most people I know did it with some other people from work. Also myself, somebody at work asked and we went with around 10 people to a place with two rooms.
you can literally play the “same” room hundreds of times. how about designing the room and having your friends bash their heads against the wall. this space is ready for disruption!!!
Best comparison point I can think of are roguelikes, but even if you can figure out a way to make custom hardware build-out easy, roguelikes largely work by making replayability cheap. It's hard to build an on-ramp to teach players about the interactions of complex systems when each playthrough costs them $50+ and takes an hour plus transpotation time.
I think you underestimate the skill and time it requires to make engaging puzzles.
The big chains will solve the repeatability issue by swapping puzzles around their world locations. I assume they are doing this already.