(Photo courtesy of Slim’s Diner)

On a normal day, Slim’s Diner‘s staff includes a team of trained waiters and hosts. On weekend evenings next month, it will consist of costumed actors locked in their own magical realist story. TBD Immersive, the theater company focused on interactive, choose-your-own-adventure-style theater, is taking over Slim’s to stage its next original production, Legendary.

At the show, which will run for three weekends in August, diners—er, theatergoers—will buy tickets for a three-course meal and enjoy dinner as a story unfolds around them.

As TBD artistic director Strother Gaines explains it, the weird, Neil Gaiman-esque plot of Legendary follows a group of demigods, each representing a pillar of society, including Celebrity/Wealth, Religion/Spirituality, Justice, and Small-Town Values. They use Slim’s Diner as a sort of escape from their world, and spend the evening gabbing, starting drama, and serving dinner.

“You watch fights develop,” says Gaines, who also stars in the production. For example: “Wealth/Celebrity and Religion/Spirituality could be rivals, but you find out they dated in high school.”

The menu from Slim’s chefs is still being worked out—for now, shrimp and grits, meatloaf, and ratatouille are tentatively planned—but one thing is certain: Diners will make their dinner selections when they purchase their tickets, like choosing between chicken or fish at a wedding. With a run time of just an hour and 15 minutes, there’s no time to take orders at the table. Bartenders from Slim’s will be on hand to serve drinks upstairs.

Expect a few surprises along the way: After all, this is the theater company that last season debuted in D.C. with a futuristic dystopian cabaret, complete with fire breathers, aerialists, and contortionists, at Blind Whino and Dupont Underground. At TBD shows, audience members are expected to wander around and interact with the cast and set. So go ahead, ask for extra ketchup. Just see what happens.

Slim’s and immersive theater don’t make as odd a match as it might sound. Paul Ruppert, who owns the diner along with Room 11, Petworth Citizen, and Upshur Street Books, worked closely with the former Warehouse Theater owned by his family. The third floor space above Slim’s hosts occasional readings and performances by local groups. “[Ruppert] is wonderful to collaborate with,” Gaines says.

TBD is giving people a chance to see the show early at a soft opening on July 21. After the show, the team is inviting everyone to a post-show talkback across the street at Petworth Citizen, where they’ll ask the show’s first audience about how it went, in an effort to work out the issues performers might encounter when trying to act and carry plates at the same time.

“I’m really excited to have a soft opening this far from our real opening,” Gaines says. “We’re hoping for those people in that first audience to be co-collaborators on the show.”

Eventually, Gaines hopes Legendary can grow.

“Our hope in long term is this is something that could pop up at Slim’s frequently or that we can shop around to other diners,” Gaines says. Until then, he expects the team to have a lot of kinks to work out as they learn how to create dinner theater. Among his biggest questions: “How hard is it to interact with us when there’s food in your mouth?”

Legendary will run Fridays and Saturdays from Aug. 10 – 25 with 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. seatings, $45. Soft opening July 21, 6:30 p.m., $35. Tickets available here.