The Enchanted Nightmare has returned to Craftsman Row Saloon, transforming the Old City bar into a haunted forest through October 31. It’s the fifth year the Nightmare Before Christmas theme has anchored the saloon’s Halloween season, and this year’s version is the most elaborate yet. Kitchen hours run Wednesday through Sunday, with the space open later on weekends for the late-night crowd.
Inside The Enchanted Nightmare’s Haunted Forest
Guests enter through weeping willows, hanging spirits, and caution tape marking a trail past hay bales and pumpkins, watched over by Jack and Sally, the characters that started this whole tradition five Halloweens ago. A fortune-telling banquette anchors one corner, its custom mural built entirely from tarot cards, with crystals hanging overhead and a crystal ball ready to tell guests their fortune for the night.
New this year is a 20-plus-foot handcrafted sandworm and a custom stormy cloud looming above the bar, joining dozens of floating witches’ hats, thousands of twinkling lights, and what the venue is calling the largest and heaviest spider they’ve hung yet. Dozens more skeletons and thousands of feet of cobwebs fill in whatever wall space is left.
The “NOW SHOWING: ENCHANTED” marquee and film-reel details round out a space that’s genuinely floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, and out onto the sidewalk in decor.
The Enchanted Nightmare’s Menu Leans Into the Theme
Returning favorites include the Vampire Burger and the Frankenberger, both built with the same over-the-top garnish work that’s become a Craftsman Row signature. New this year is the Oktoberfest Burger on a pretzel bun with beer cheese, alongside the Belly of the Beast, a braised pork belly plate with street corn dip and an aioli spider on top.
The bar leans just as hard into the bit. The Pumpkin Margarita and the Witches Goblet both come in take-home glassware, and four themed milkshakes round out the menu, including two new additions this year: the Mad Scientist, built on mint chocolate chip with a lab coat cookie, and the boozy Caramel Apple Crypt.
The Enchanted Nightmare Leads Into Craftsman Row’s Christmas Season
Once Halloween wraps, owners George and Vasiliki Tsiouris move directly into their next build, with Craftsman Row’s award-winning Christmas pop-up opening November 5.
The siblings, who also run Drury Beer Garden in Midtown Village, took over the 112 South 8th Street space, a working bar for a century, most recently known as Coco’s, and preserved the original bar facade, nameplates of old regulars and all, while building the seasonal identity the space has become known for since.
Reservations are available now through OpenTable, and the full menu of theme bites, cocktails, and milkshakes is worth seeing in person rather than reading off a list. It follows last year’s Christmas transformation, which set the bar this Halloween season has clearly been trying to match.
Most Halloween bars pick a theme and coast on it for a few years. Craftsman Row has now built two fully realized seasonal worlds back to back, with barely a week between striking one and raising the next, which says more about what this place actually is than either holiday does on its own.
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