When you enter Beetle House, the first thing you do is walk through a narrow hallway with flashing hypnotic spirals. It’s a dizzying effect that perhaps prepares you for the dimly-lit bar that comes next.

The H Street location, opening tonight, bills itself as a year-round celebration of Halloween. The wall behind the bar is lined with jack-o-lanterns; elsewhere, Victorian-esque portraits and Halloween-themed artwork is scattered about. You might remember Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas. His face, massive and bathed in purple light, protrudes from a wall. There’s various taxidermy, including an entire goat head. Photos whose eyes follow you and faces change. A display of bats in glass cases. And—perhaps most unsettling—skulls and dismembered spinal cords turned into lamps.

“They’re all real, you know,” Zach Neil, the bar’s creator, says as the soundtrack from The Nightmare Before Christmas plays overhead. “The spines. The bats, too.”

Neil was behind the first Beetle House, which began as a pop-up in New York City in 2016 before becoming permanent. He also has locations in California.

Neil’s move to D.C. comes after a friend, who owned the now-closed Mythology Lounge, offered the space to Neil to bring a Beetle House to D.C. It’s the same spot where, in 2017, Neil opened “Stay Classy,” a pop-up bar dedicated to Will Ferrell.

“Our slogan: every day is Halloween,” Neil says of Beetle House. Growing up, Neil’s religious upbringing kept him from celebrating Halloween. So, at age 17, he rebelled, getting into horror culture and macabre. He later joined a band, became a chef, and began to open restaurants.

Beetle House isn’t just the work of Neil though; Gia Farrell, a bartender at one of his restaurants, pitched the idea and they became partners. Farrell and Neil wanted something that reflected their love for Tim Burton and his creations, but without looking too cheesy. “It’s not Disney,” Neil says.

But unlike the 7th Street Halloween pop-up bar, Town Tavern’s Harry Potter bar, and other festive hangouts that materialize in D.C. in October, Beetle House isn’t intended to be a pop-up. It’s here all year round. (And, yes, that is a plotline on BoJack Horseman.)

Neil insists, however, that Beetle House’s other locations are busy all the time, often selling out. “Our worst three weeks of the year are the first three weeks of January,” he says.  

Neil says it’s the food and atmosphere that keep patrons coming in. For $50, you get a three course meal cooked up by Chef Chris Binotto followed by a circus-esque show. The food follows a spooky theme, but also seems to be nostalgic. Root-beer flavored wings (they also come in an orange soda variety) come topped with pop rocks, and the Sweeney Beef dish is straddled by a straight razor. Most of the dishes are cheeky nods to Burton—think Corprese Bride Salad (which comes with a mysterious “mozzarella foam”), Edward Burger Hands (topped with bacon, avocado, and a fried egg), and, simply, Big Fish (it’s salmon). Others are reminiscent of childhood books, including the Cheshire Mac & Cheese (in a truffle sauce with garlic bread crumbs) and the Giant Peach Salad (with a peach vinaigrette and roasted peaches).

Afterwards, you can make your way to a show in the second bar upstairs which also doubles as a club. The show will include fire dancers, sword eaters, contortionists, and more, Neil says. He considers the $50 fee reasonable. “Medieval Times is, what, $65?” he says. “And you see a guy on a horse.”

Beetle House isn’t the first bar to use a fixed price in D.C.—or even the first at that address. The storefront on H Street housed a Star Wars pop-up bar in 2017, but the $40 it cost to get in only got you drinks.

At Beetle House, perhaps the only thing that’s like the other pop-ups in town are the pricey and intricately-themed cocktails. They’re not included in the prix fixe and come out to $10-$15 each. Naturally, they follow the theme with names like This is Halloween (made with Fireball, sour apple flavor, pumpkin liqueur, and apple cider), and, of course, Beetle Juice (made with tequila and cranberry juice with muddled blackberries and with dry ice pouring out of it). There’s even a sweet alcoholic punch served in a realistic-looking blood bag.

While a reservation is required for dinner, you can always wander into the upstairs bar without one to try the drinks. If you get two drinks, Neil says, you can stay for the show, which goes on every night.

So who does Neil see coming to D.C.’s Beetle House?

“We’ve created a place for anyone who is into horror culture and punk rock,” he says. But really the target is tourists.

Noting the millions of tourists who visit the District each year, Neil repeats an oft-used myth about D.C. nightlife. “Everything in D.C. kind of turns off at 7 o’clock at night,” he says. “After the monuments, there’s not really a lot of options. It’s mostly chain restaurants.”

After Beetle House opens Friday, only weekend hours will be operational for the first two weeks. Neil says they already have reservations lined up.

Beetle House is located at 816 H Street NE. Open Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, 4 p.m.-11:30 p.m. and Thursday,-Saturday, 4 p.m.-2 a.m.