A Complete Guide to Halloween Dining and Drinking In Brooklyn
Since Halloween falls on a Friday this year, you might want to seriously rethink that hot evening you had planned—i.e., lying prostrate in front of the AMC horror movie marathon, hand half submerged in a bowl of mini Krackles—because area bars and restaurants are amping up for a variety of all-night, adults-only festivities!
Twin Peaks Halloween Party at The Owl’s Head: Fire Walk with the Owl’s Head during their yearly, Halloween Eve transformation into One Eyed Jack’s, courtesy of their enduring love affair with Bay Ridge native son, Angelo Badalamenti (who composed the haunting Twin Peaks theme).
479 74th Street, Bay Ridge
Candy Apples and Cocktails at The Runner: Go with the kiddies early on in the day for candy apples and other house-baked goodies, then return during witching hour for exclusively 21 and over treats, such as Jalapeño Tequila “Werewolf of Brooklyn” and Buffalo Trace-based “Halloween in a Glass” cocktails.
458 Myrtle Avenue, Clinton Hill
Horror Movie Fest at Nitehawk Cinemas: The theme of Nitehawk’s annual Halloween movie marathon is “A Nite to Dismember,” five back-to-back horror films played until the crack of dawn. If your stomach’s not effectively turned by all that blood and gore, take advantage of seat-side service, and order up a Pumpkin Carver cocktail to enjoy alongside.
136 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg
Day of the Dead at Gran Electrica: Boasting walls plastered with grinning skeletons—gaily cavorting across the Brooklyn Bridge, walking mummified doggies, or supervising their hollow-eyed children on Jane’s Carousel—Gran Electrica is already duly outfitted for Dia de Los Muertos. But they really slip into high gear on Halloween, offering drink specials, traditional dishes, a DJ, raffles, and prizes for best costume.
5 Front Street, DUMBO
Halo Halloween Party at Pork Slope: This Park Slope roadhouse never passes up an opportunity to party, so swing by in costume (whoever’s voted best dressed wins two Nets tickets), for live DJ sets and celebratory specials, such as $10 pitchers of Saranac Pumpkin Ale and $9 glasses of Orchard Punch. Don’t worry if you pass out behind the bar, because they’re also offering a day-after brunch, featuring M&M Pancakes and Donut French Toast.
247 5th Avenue, Park Slope
Halloween Supper Club at Brooklyn Commune: Instead of offering regular dinner service on Halloween, this sustainably-minded Windsor Terrace café is reinstituting their RSVP-only supper club. Expect a menu of four spectacularly creepy courses, including “Dracula’s Red Cape,” (a composed salad of red leaf lettuce, wine-braised onions and a beet juice-stained egg), “Body, Brains and Bones,” featuring a rosemary thorn-roasted lamb rack with marrow demi glace, “Spooky Risotto,” dyed with squid ink and garnished with writhing tentacles of grilled octopus, ‘sacrificed’ tomatoes and ‘pushing up daisies dust,’ and a “Black Night Chocolate Pudding,” dusted with Greenwood Cemetery “soil” and encased in glass ball tomb.
601 Greenwood Avenue, Windsor Terrace
7 Plagues of the Apocalypse at Brucie: Most restaurants will at least nod to Halloween with an appropriately themed cocktail, or a holiday-influenced dish. But Cobble Hill favorite, Brucie, has entirely overhauled its menu, listing small plates under “Plagues” (i.e., The Throne of the Beast, with bone marrow, sweet breads and smoked gouda), re-naming a quadrant of pastas as “The Four Horseman,” including a blood-red bucatini splashed with wine, nduja, chilis and tomato confit, and offering a selection of imposing, meaty entrees inspired by characters or themes in the Book of Revelation, such as the Lamb of God with beets, romanesco, sweet potato and fernet, and the Antichrist—featuring a tuna “ribeye” with bagna cauda and caviar.
234 Court Street, Cobble Hill