Oxnard, CA — A Nightmare Before Christmas pop-up is open at Carne, a Latin live-fire steakhouse at The Collection at RiverPark, through Sunday, Nov. 1, with Jack’s Midnight Margarita, Sally’s Sweet Escape-Tini and Graveyard Fries on a Halloween menu. There’s no ticket: A Nightmare at CARNE is regular dining, in a room decorated with ghosts, cobwebs and a Jack Skellington figure.
Carne opened on July 10, cooking steaks and seafood over wood fire with flavors from Argentina, Mexico, Spain and the Caribbean. Its Halloween theme comes from The Nightmare Before Christmas, the 1993 stop-motion musical about Jack Skellington, the king of Halloween Town, which returned to theaters on October 2 with a light-up Jack Skellington popcorn bucket.
Inside the Pop-Up: Ghosts, Reapers, Jack and Sally
Ghosts and hooded reapers hang from the ceiling over the booths, cobwebs stretch across the beams, and inflatable ghosts taller than the booths glow blue and green. A Jack Skellington figure stands in the main dining room, and a Jack and Sally pair stands by the bar.
The Halloween Menu and Prices
The six Halloween dishes, which Carne calls “playful twists on CARNE favorites,” run from $14 to $19 where a price is listed:
- Boogie’s Burger Bites: mini beef sliders served with crispy fries
- Bloody Wings: wings tossed in a spicy sauce
- Graveyard Fries, $14: topped with melted cheese and herbs
- Nightmare Nachos, $14: loaded with guacamole and queso fresco
- Cauldron of Cheese, $16: melted cheeses and chorizo
- Monster Mash Guacamole, $19: served with crispy tortilla chips and pork cracklings
On Carne’s regular starters menu, the closest dishes are the Queso Fundido, with Oaxaca cheese and Mexican chorizo, at $19, and Chicharrónes & Guacamole at $18.
The six Halloween cocktails run from $16 to $30:
- Jack’s Midnight Margarita, $16: tequila, passion fruit and lime
- Sally’s Sweet Escape-Tini, $16: vodka, vanilla and prickly pear
- The Boogie Man Brew, $17
- Midnight Misfit Mule, $16
- Jack-O’-Lantern Brew, $29: a shareable drink of tequila, Prosecco, mango and passion fruit
- Graveyard Margarita Flight, $30: four margarita flavors
Hours, Reservations and How to Go
A Nightmare at CARNE runs through Sunday, Nov. 1, and you order off the menu as you would at any dinner. Visit Oxnard, the city’s visitor bureau, lists admission as free, and Carne takes reservations on OpenTable.
Carne is open 4 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 4 to 11 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday. Brunch starts at 10 a.m. on weekends, so on Halloween the restaurant opens in the morning.
More Nightmare Before Christmas and Halloween Pop-Ups
In Commerce, Beetle House LA, the every-day-is-Halloween bar and restaurant, is back as a $30 Halloween party at The Compound through Nov. 7, with tickets sold in advance only on Eventbrite.
At Disneyland, Haunted Mansion Holiday dresses the Haunted Mansion in Nightmare Before Christmas decor through the holiday season, and this year’s gingerbread house is a music box more than 10 feet tall.
Later this season, Jack’s story becomes an ice walkthrough at Gaylord Rockies in Aurora, Colorado, carved from about two million pounds of ice, from November 20 through January 3.
For haunted houses and Halloween events across the state, see my Haunted Houses in California guide.
A Nightmare at CARNE is at Carne, 511 Town Center Dr., Oxnard, through Sunday, Nov. 1. For the regular menu and reservations, visit carnerestaurants.com.
Top photo: Carne’s dining room during A Nightmare at CARNE. Photo courtesy of Carne.
