The best Halloween party venues in NYC

Speakeasies are natural venues for Halloween parties. Think about it – you need a secret password to get in, you’re led down to the basement by a stranger, and you’re given a strange colored drink that’ll alter your brain state. If that’s not the start of a John Carpenter movie, we don’t know what is. Raines Law Room combines that experience with dark curtains, velvet lounges, and killer cocktails. Dim lighting in the drawing room may lead you to expect Nosferatu in the corner – and if he is there, he’s probably drinking an Amber Old Fashioned.

A full buyout can host up to 75 guests, or rent out the Drawing Room for an intimate 25 guests. Special events packages are available, including open bars and cocktail mixology classes.

Fraunces Tavern was established in 1762 – meaning it’s literally older than the country itself – as a building that once served as a watering hole for the Founding Fathers. There’s nothing particularly Halloween-y about this venue, but the creakiness of the floorboards, antique picture frames, and the occasional cool “breeze” are bound to give you goosebumps anyway.

If you want a more subdued Halloween party with your friends (dead or alive), you can host an event at one of Fraunces Tavern’s multiple event spaces. Lafayette’s Hideout Bar can host up to 85 guests with a private entrance and a full-service bar available for private hire. The Wine Room is ideal for a more intimate dinner in a cellar, or enjoy a cozy evening at the Dingle Whiskey Bar which features a fireplace, lounge seating, and over 500 whiskey varieties – both of these spaces host 25 guests.

Hot tip: compliment your evening with a spooky stroll around Manhattan’s oldest neighborhood, and join a FiDi haunted walking tour.

If the Twilight Zone took you to a Caribbean island, this is probably what it would look like. The decor is, well, hard to explain. It looks like somewhere Hades would frequent when he takes Persephone on vacation. Red lights and eclectic creepy decor, palm trees and straw huts – it’s pretty chaotic, all backed by a soundtrack of voodoo rock. If that’s what your ideal Halloween looks like, this is the place.

Drinks are named things like “The Demon Path” and “Spectral Voices”, and the menu descriptions feel like it was written by a really, really drunk Edgar Allen Poe. You’ll also find a fully fleshed backstory that features surfing zombies and implies the bar exists on its own cosmic plane.

They do private and semi-private events for groups over 10.

Madame X has been around since 1997, offering a sultry living room atmosphere for late-night soirees. We tend to avoid the word sexy to describe bars, but with its red lights and bordello-style layout, there’s no other way to describe it. The place is full of surprises – depending on the night, you might walk into a burlesque performance, drag show, or DJ set.

Halloween adds an extra layer of spookiness to the venue, and though Madame X encourages dressing up year-round, you can really go all out. The disco balls, red and purple velvet upholstery, and gothic decor are all basically begging you to get your fishnets out.

There are a few different private party rooms across two floors, but the Salon Rouge and the Bedouin Lounge are ideal for Halloween parties, hosting between 60 and 80 guests.

Ironically housed within the original Prohibition Enforcement Headquarters, this maximalist bar features an art and object collection from around the world, including a fireplace inlay from a 1700s castle and an original Victorian gothic lamp. Combined with the building’s 115-year-old history, Oscar Wilde sure has some stories to tell.

This Midtown haunt loves to decorate for the seasons, and they go all-out for Halloween, playing off the 1800s theme with creepy dolls and spiderwebs everywhere. They’ve got events on all October, but if you want to throw your own Halloween bash, there are a lot of semi-private party venue spaces to choose from, each with its own selection of funky memorabilia. The only fully private option is a full buyout of up to 225 guests.