CareerCup

+1 on the BFS approach.

Here's an implementation of @Anonymous suggestion in C++

#include<stdio.h>
#include<iostream>
#include<string.h>

#define N 4
#define M 5

using namespace std;

// Prints the nearest bathroom

void printNearestBathroom(int rowPos,int colPos)    {
    cout<<"The nearest bathroom is at:"<<rowPos<<" "<<colPos;
    return;
}


void bfs(int matrix[][M],int startPosRow,int startPosCol)   {
    
    int queue[N*M][2];
    
    bool visited[N][M];
    
    for(int i=0;i<N;i++) {
        for(int j=0;j<M;j++)    {
            visited[i][j]=false;
        }
    }
    
    int front,rear;
    front=rear=-1;
    queue[++rear][0]=startPosRow;
    queue[rear][1]=startPosCol;
    visited[startPosRow][startPosCol]=true;
    front++;
    
    while(front<=rear)  {
        
        int currRow=queue[front][0];
        int currCol=queue[front][1];
        
        if(matrix[currRow][currCol]==0) {
            printNearestBathroom(currRow,currCol);
            return;
        }
        
        front++;
        
        
        if( currRow>0 && visited[currRow-1][currCol]==false )  {
            queue[++rear][0]=currRow-1;
            queue[rear][1]=currCol;
            visited[currRow-1][currCol]=true;
        }
        
        if(currCol>0 && visited[currRow][currCol-1]==false ) {
            queue[++rear][0]=currRow;
            queue[rear][1]=currCol-1;
            visited[currRow][currCol-1]=true;
        }
        
        if(currCol!=M-1 && visited[currRow][currCol+1]==false )   {
            queue[++rear][0]=currRow;
            queue[rear][1]=currCol+1;
            visited[currRow][currCol+1]=true;
        }

        if(currRow!=N-1 && visited[currRow+1][currCol]==false )    {
            queue[++rear][0]=currRow+1;
            queue[rear][1]=currCol;
            visited[currRow+1][currCol]=true;
        }
        
    }
    
}
int main()  {
    int matrix[N][M]={ {1,1,1,1,0},        // 1 denotes a room and 0 denotes a bathroom
                       {1,1,1,1,1},
                       {1,1,0,1,0},
                       {1,1,0,1,0}
                       };
    bfs(matrix,2,1);
    return 0;
}