Minneapolis has no shortage of places to eat dinner. It has far fewer where dinner arrives by candlelight, under a century-old plaster ceiling, in a house with a reputation. If you have been searching for a haunted dinner in Minneapolis — a real sit-down evening rather than a walk-through jump-scare attraction — the answer is behind the heavy doors of a Gilded Age mansion at 100 East 22nd Street. It is called Witching Hours, and it happens every night.

So what exactly is Witching Hours?

Witching Hours is the Pillsbury Club’s nightly adults-only dining and cocktail experience, staged inside the historic Charles S. Pillsbury Mansion. Picture a haunted hideaway crossed with a vintage supper club, with a streak of campy horror running through the whole thing. It is not a haunted house you file through. It is a table you sit down at, in rooms that were built for entertaining and have been doing it for more than a century.

The practical details, straight from the Club:

• Nightly, 5:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
• One-hour table blocks
• Adults 21+ only
• Reservations required
• $40 food and beverage minimum per person
• Optional Haunted Attic Pass — $15 per person

What is actually on the menu

The kitchen keeps things approachable: American favorites done properly, built around handcrafted burgers and shareable appetizers — exactly the right food for a room this theatrical. The bar runs local and global at the same time, with Minneapolis beers like Grain Belt Premium and Surly Furious sitting alongside wine by the glass and spirits from a good deal further afield. You can read the current dining and cocktail list before you come, which is a smart move when your table is booked in a one-hour block.

About that Haunted Attic Pass

If one hour of the mansion is not enough house for you, Witching Hours offers an optional Haunted Attic Pass for $15 per person, added on to your reservation. Decide when you book rather than leaving it to a busy Saturday night — the Club is open to guests with a reservation, which is precisely what keeps the atmosphere feeling like a secret.

Yes, you should dress for it

Half the fun of a campy horror fantasy is that everyone is in on it. Witching Hours is a legitimate excuse to wear the velvet blazer, the vintage dress, the slightly ridiculous ring. Nobody here will think you have overdone it. The mansion has been out-dressing its guests since long before any of us showed up.

Turning one hour into a whole evening

Because tables run in one-hour blocks, Witching Hours is built to be the anchor of a longer night rather than the entire night. A few ways to extend it:

Add a ghost tour. The Candlelight Ghost Tour from Minneapolis Trolley Tours is a spine-tingling run at the city’s most haunted sites aboard a historic trolley that is itself said to be haunted — and it boards right here at the mansion. The Club opens an hour before your scheduled tour, so a drink first is not just possible, it is the plan. Our guide to a haunted night out in Minneapolis walks through how that evening unfolds.

Take a private room. For a birthday or a small celebration, the Emerald Suite is a private second-floor club room with plush lounge seating for up to 10 guests, available on hourly reservations, booked in advance.

Start with art. The Minneapolis Institute of Art is a short walk away, free to enter, open Tuesday through Sunday with late hours until 9 p.m. on Thursdays. Cross Washburn Fair Oaks Park on your way over and you have had a full afternoon before your 5:00 p.m. table.

A little history, lightly

The mansion sits inside the Washburn-Fair Oaks Mansion District, a cluster of surviving Gilded Age houses listed on the National Register of Historic Places and recognized locally by the City of Minneapolis. Whittier is one of the more interesting corners of the city to spend a day in — Meet Minneapolis has the full rundown, and so does our own guide to what there is to do in Whittier. If you want the deep story of the house itself — the flour fortune, the English oak rooms shipped across an ocean, the carved faces in the dining room — that lives in our History Journal.

Staying the night

If the evening runs long — and at a $40 minimum with a ghost trolley attached, it might — 300 Clifton is a historic mansion bed & breakfast a few minutes north in Loring Park, and Oakland’s on 9th offers furnished studio apartments downtown for longer stays.

Booking a table

The Pillsbury Club is a private, members-style club, and reservations are required in advance — which is good news on a Saturday, because the room never fills with a walk-in crowd. Pick your night, book your one-hour block, decide about the attic, and dress like you mean it. Reserve your Witching Hours table, or see the full lineup of experiences and tours at the Club.

Keep reading: Where to find a speakeasy-style night out in Minneapolis.

Keep reading: Which Gilded Age mansions in Minneapolis can you actually tour inside?