Haunted Castle Cafe

This Haunted Castle-themed restaurant is a fang-tastic spot for Halloween lovers, with spooky decorations, great service, and a ghostly fun atmosphere. They didn't miss a single boo-tiful detail--every inch is decked out, even the bathroom, which is painted with pumpkins and lit by eerie black lights. There were still Christmas decorations up, including an animated Krampus and two Christmas trees, which added an unexpected frightmas flair.That said, there are some areas where this place could creep it real. The menu doesn't fully embrace the haunted theme, and I would have loved some creative dish names to match the spooky vibe. Out of our party of seven, we had two grave concerns with the food. The chicken wings appetizer tasted like it had a case of freezer fright, and the Dulce dessert's texture was more rubbery than eerie.On the bright side, the vegan burger was monster-sized and satisfying, and the rest of our orders (chicken Alfredo, rack of lamb, fig appetizer, calamari, mac and cheese bites, and kids' chicken with mashed potatoes) were decent, though not exactly spook-tacular. The food isn't terrible, but there's a hauntingly big opportunity to elevate it. A head chef with a flair for creating dishes as magical as the decor could really breathe life into the menu.Overall, this place is worth a visit for the boo-tiful atmosphere, but unless the food gets a glow-up, I don't see us creeping back. Still, it's a great spot for Halloween fans who love a side of spooky with their supper!

One star for the cool, kitschy ambience. One star for the overworked server.This place has a cool concept, but falls far short in the food department. The salad was missing a creamy Caesar dressing. Instead, it had a light, bottled Italian dressing. The tomato soup was ok, as was the rest of the food - just ok. I'd bet a good amount of money that all of the food, every single item, was premade, reheated food. The soup tastes like the Costco variety. The sauces on the pastas were generic and tasted like bottled Alfredo sauce. The desserts were lackluster, cut from a large generic budget cake. The lava cake had no gooey chocolate fudge in the middle - just chunky, dry chocolate fudge.The restaurant was only half full, but it was very clear that they are understaffed. The server said so as well. We were told that despite the preset menu stating that there is a choice of dessert for each diner, they can only accommodate one dessert per table as they don't have enough people working in the back. We did end up getting two desserts, but here is the order in which we received our food:First out - Soup10 minutes later - Salad10 minutes later - Chocolate Lava Cake (dessert)15 minutes later - Tortellini with Shrimp 5 minutes later - Lemon Cheesecake (dessert)10 minutes later - Chicken Alfredo No drink refills were offered, but we were given a glass of Prosecco in a plastic flute at the beginning. I'd give this place a hard pass in the future.

Good service.OVERPRICED!!!!!Terrible food.I feel like someone that used to work at the Magic Time Machine wanted to create something like that but a Halloween theme. The food is wannabe fancy food. We came for inexpensive burgers and fries. Instead we got $18 burgers that weren't that great. I got the smashed meat balls, they were cold, dry and all my veggies were cold.Wont be returning. What could improve? Less pricey food. Get rid of the fancy food and make a simple menu.

Well, dang. My adult fam, that loves spooky things, has been dying to try this place. We finally stopped in for a quick drink on a Sunday afternoon. The decor is really something else, it's definitely more spooky vibe than scary. The whole place reminds me of the Magic Time Machine concept, just with a spooky twist. When we arrived, the place was completely empty, which we expected for a Sunday afternoon. We all tried different alcoholic beverages, some were better than others. I definitely didn't have a problem at all with how the drinks were crafted, the dry ice was a fun effect. The staff, however, were a bit odd. Our bartender kept trying to make conversation with us, which normally we'd be okay with in a casual and light hearted way, but it felt like they were really trying to insert themselves into our convo. It made us uncomfortable and we felt like we couldn't talk without the bartender trying to chime in. The other weird thing is the menu. For a place that feels like it is decidedly casual and catering to families/kids/birthdays, why are we offering a pistachio crusted rack of lamb? Chilean sea bass? Octopus??? These dishes sound great but woah, that menu is for a fine dining restaurant. Overall the menu feels totally out of line for this venue and overpriced. Menu needs an overhaul in my opinion. One final note- black lights show *everything*. With so much black light the staff should really take care of make sure things are spotless. The bathroom had me a little icked out. Fun to try, and I really wish the best for them as I think the concept is awesome, but not our cup of tea. I think they could potentially try for things like karaoke, trivia, or bingo on weeknights to drive an adult crowd in this interesting venue!

Lunch here is extremely quiet but that didn't stop us from catching lunch and experiencing Halloween in mid January. A unique dining experience, everything is very dark and lit by blacklight. The burger was delicious, bread was fresh. I love their attention to detail. I look forward to coming back and bringing my kids.

Just in time for Halloween, I have a scary review of the Haunted Castle Cafe- Not the kind with goblins and ghouls, but the kind with disappointments and bad experiences. To frame my recounting of my meal, I have to mention that I was here with a large group of 10 for a bachelorette party. I was pretty stoked to see someone would finally be occupying this space that had to be vacant for at least a decade. I Remembered back in the day, this used to be Tenaya- the Mexican food restaurant, which was sooooo good. I was hopeful the new occupants would bring a much needed revitalization to the building. You know, it had been vacant so long, I thought it might actually be haunted, so when the Haunted Castle Cafe popped up, it seemed a little too on the nose. We had reservations for 1pm on a Sunday, but there was still a long wait for us to be seated. That set the stage for a series of misses that impacted our time. When we were finally seated, we were taken to a large dining area with murals of dragons and everything was drenched in black light. It's cheesy, but kind of what I was expecting based on the exterior of the building and the hilariously awful website. The waiter who took our order was very nice. We didn't have any issue with the service other than the wait taking so long. Before our food was brought out, we went ahead and cashed out so we wouldn't have to drag the meal out any longer. The bride had booked a party bus and we had a strict timeline, so it was weird we had to try to speed things up since the wait for the food was so long. Now, before I dined here, I did visit their website so I could get an idea of what the food was like. I settled on the Arugula Fig Salad. At $18, it's kind of what I would expect to pay elsewhere for a salad of that size. The flavors were good and the produce was fresh. I liked my salad, and had a $10 strawberry smoothie- well, it was supposed to be strawberry banana, but I was told they were out of bananas. Definitely, not worth $10. Honestly, I don't know where else charges $10 for a smoothie of that size because it was definitely on the small side. The menu for the most part seems to be punching above its weight class. Chilean Sea Bass for $45 and Rack of Lamb for $42? The menu is bizarre and I don't understand exactly who it's for. There's too many random items and on the day of our visit, they did not have a soup of the day as listed on their menu.The worst part of the meal was the restroom was flooded. I had to carefully walk around the toilet and I could not figure out why the stalls seemed to be dripping water. When I flushed the toilet, I learned why. Overall, this place definitely evokes feeling of horror and shock, but not for the reasons you would think. The concept is fun, but the execution is poor. It's like too much going on and the business lacks focus. The timing needs to get under control, and the bathrooms need to be functioning properly. Edit down the menu- it makes no sense and is way overpriced for many of the items. I would not return here, that is; unless I get invited to another goth bachelorette party...

This is the kind of place that you go just to see what it's all about. They have done a great job with the decorations. You can definitely see they've put a lot of thought into it. The menu is limited and overpriced. The drinks are good and they pour heavy, so be ready. Staff is welcoming, but not the best service, they took over 40 min to get out order and no one ever went back to check on us. We went on a Wednesday during lunch time, we were the only people there, so it wasn't busy.

I honestly don't even know where to begin with this place. I do want to give a 5 star review shoutout to our waitress Tashika. She was an absolute delight, very friendly, bubbly, attentive and honest. Also, keep in mind, they have only been open for a week, so I hope management reads these reviews and takes some of this feedback to try to make this place better. We had a reservation, not sure why we needed one as the place was not that busy. We got to the host stand and the hostess told us it'll be another 30 minutes before we're seated. Decor: it's a cool concept but a little all over the place and kind of cheesy. Is it Dracula's castle, is it dragons, is it fairies, is it a pumpkin patch? You're INSIDE a castle but the paintings on the wall is for outside of the castle? Also, the music made absolutely no sense. One minute they're playing the Monster Mash, the next Evanescence is playing? Again, is this more of a Halloween place, is it a haunted castle, or? This place just feels more like it's catered for kids, and there's nothing wrong with that, but when you look at the menu, it doesn't make sense. Food/Menu: umm, yikes. So with the decor being catered more towards kids, the menu is definitely made for adults at a high end restaurant. BUT this place is called the Haunted Castle CAFE, so why are entrees $20+? The ghost on the wall was eating a slice of pizza, but pizza was nowhere on the menu. We were very hesitant to get food because of the reviews but we tried some sides. We ordered the side of mashed potatoes, side of mac and cheese, and an order of the medium calamari. Mashed potatoes were probably my favorite. The calamari was good but not worth $15. The mac and cheese almost tasted like they took a jar of queso and dumped it over elbow macaroni. We wanted to try a drink from the bar but I wanted to wait and see what people were ordering and if it was worth paying $14+ for a cocktail. I was expecting some cool glasses or something themed for the cocktails to come out in but they just put them in regular cups. So we skipped the drinks. I think they should continue the theme into cups/plates to tie everything together. We got water in plastic to go cups, but the silverware had some cool skulls on it. There are a lot of things that they need to improve on, and do it quickly before Halloween gets here. Hopefully management makes improvements, and this place gets better over the next few weeks.

We honestly went here with low expectations around the food and were pleasantly surprised. We stuck with burgers and they were pretty good.The decor is basically a rainforest cafe type with a spooky vibe as you can see in any number of the pictures in the reviews. Our teenage son thought it was corny but our little girls thought it was amazing, especially the beetlejuice character.Our issue was that our service was absolutely atrocious. We sat at our table 6:30 and didn't order until 7:30. We constantly had to find our waiter to take our order, get refills, bring our check then take our money. He even promised to credit our appetizer because of how awful it was and he didn't even do that. We didn't feel like arguing so we left and just took the L. This place is cool for kids but if they don't fix their issues, they are not going to survive.

Thank you Haunted Castle Cafe for a wonderful experience! The decor and scenery set up a whole VIBE! Highly recommend this place. Everything screams Halloween or just a spooky good time. The staff, food and drinks were top notch!