Special pumpkin flavors will stick around through the end of November. Dolcezza's fall menu utilizes a pumpkin spice syrup made from 1,800 lbs of heirloom crookneck pumpkins grown at Beiler’s Heritage Acres Farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The pumpkins were oven-blistered in-house with dark brown sugar, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and clove to create the syrup featured in the following limited-time-only treats:
Pumpkin Spice Gelato
Pumpkin Spice Latte
Pumpkin Chai Latte
Honeycrisp Apple Sorbet, made with apples grown by Toigo Orchards in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania
Bring the kids in their best costumes for an amazing evening of treats and festivities. Stroll through the Row and collect treats from participating shops and restaurants. It's a safe and fun way to get a head start on filling up those candy bags, with treats from the local businesses you know and trust.
Every registered child will get a special Bethesda Row glow stick to light up the night—great for safety and fun while trick-or-treating. Keep an eye out for fun and festive costume characters roaming the Row. Be sure to stop and snap a spooky selfie! And just by registering your child, you'll be entered to win a $100 gift card to a Bethesda Row brand.
Tickets are required per child (adults are free) and cost $5. All proceeds go directly to Manna Food Center, an organization dedicated to fighting hunger in our community. Tickets must be purchased in advance online here.
A gift card isn't the only prize up for grabs Thursday. Post your favorite Halloween pics from the event on social media and tag @bethesdarowfrt for a chance to win a frightfully fantastic mystery prize.
If your little monsters are between the ages of 3 and 10, they are the target audience for the show. Bring 'em on down. But bring the parents as well, because every good ghost story needs witnesses, right? And if you're one of those grown-up fans who still likes the shiver but can skip the genuine terror—you're welcome here, too. The door is wide open.
The fun starts when the shadows get long: October 31st and November 1st, 2025, from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM.
Costumes are encouraged for kids and adults. Swing by before or after the big sugar grab of Trick or Treating, or just use it to finish off the whole Halloween shebang. It's the perfect nightcap... or maybe the perfect appetizer.
Look, you don't want to get shut out, standing there in the cold, so buy those timed entry tickets in advance at www.MysteryMansion.org. Trust me, disappointment is a ghoul you want to avoid.
For one low price—a flat $20 for any age—you get the whole creepy carnival:
1. Entry to the Mystery Mansion: Wander the unique halls of their indoor, family-friendly haunted house. It’s strange. It’s fun. It’s exactly where you need to be.
2. The Hall of Portraits: Rub elbows (or maybe just skeletal remains) with assorted characters and get those perfect, spooky photo-ops. Say cheese! Or maybe say "boo!"
3. Artisan Alley: This year they have a new spot for you to let your creative side out—a crafting workshop where you can leave your own little mark.
And if you get a little hungry, a little thirsty from all that excitement, they will have food and drinks for sale, including s'mores kits. Oh, yes. Firepits will be crackling away, waiting for you to tell your own whispered tales. The address, if you're looking for the house at the end of the lane? It’s The Woman's Club of Chevy Chase clubhouse at 7931 Connecticut Ave in Chevy Chase. Parking is available in the lot behind the clubhouse.
Photo courtesy Woman's Club of Chevy Chase
Make sure to read the FAQ on the website for important information regarding accessibility, clothing and shoe requirements, and parking and weather advisories. You can also buy tickets on there, of course. Also, if you are a traditional hayride fanatic, be forewarned that the separate Haunted Hayride attraction is not simply a standard hayride. You will explore the haunted Leech cemetery on foot, in between your rides out and back from that burial plot. There are fire pits in the village over which you can keep warm, and/or heat up s'mores from kits you can buy. In past years, there have been fortune tellers, merch to immortalize your survival, carnival games, axe throwing, and more in that spooky yet quaint village area. And there are plenty of "characters" to keep you diverted while you wait to enter the trail.
The founders of this attraction have wisely grounded the haunts in a chilling story inspired by the original inhabitants of the property, the Leech family, who met a grisly demise at the hands of truly demented people...or something else...during the brutal Maryland winter of 1804. Suffice it to say, there's enough negative energy on-site to overload your ghost radar and EMF meter. No wonder so many who have survived their trek on the Leech Woods Haunted Trail have reported getting quite a scare in their 5-star Yelp, and 4.7-star Google reviews.
New for 2024!
The Dark Castle and Dark Forest experiences are both family-friendly adventures, open from 5:00 to 9:00 PM. What looks most interesting and unusual is the "slightly scarier" Dark Space, which appears to be an homage to the classic sci-fi horror movie Alien. You ordinarily have to go to a theme park for an experience like that. Prepare to blast off into deep space between 6:00 and 9:00 PM, where you will "navigate through abandoned starships and alien-infested corridors." Remember, in the Woman's Club of Chevy Chase, no one can hear you scream!
Event Details:
Dates: Friday, October 25th & Saturday, October 26th; Friday, November 1st & Saturday, November 2nd
Time: 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location: Woman's Club of Chevy Chase (free parking is available behind the club)
Tickets: Purchase tickets online at www.mysterymansion.org
Tomorrow is Halloween, and what is Halloween without a ghost? There's one who haunts the area around the Shady Grove Metro station in Derwood, and has since his untimely death there in 1864. Walter "Wat" Bowie was among many Marylanders who were Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War. Like some, such as Bethesda plantation owner Nathan Loughborough, Bowie couldn't resist getting in on the fighting action himself despite living in a state that hadn't seceded from the Union. And yes, Wat Bowie was a member of that Bowie family, whose home turf is now a fast-growing city in Prince George's County.
Did you know there is a real Route 666, and it is located in Kensington, Maryland? The Satanic-numbered Maryland highway designation was given to Armory Avenue, a portion of Howard Avenue, and St. Paul Street, when they served as the original route to cross the Baltimore & Ohio (now CSX) Railroad tracks in Kensington. Today, the newer Connecticut Avenue serves that purpose to the west, with a grade-separated bridge crossing. The controversial 666 route number was removed in 1958, but you can still drive the real-life "Highway to Hell" today. However, the only way to travel the entire length continously is on foot, by using the pedestrian crossing at the Kensington railroad station.
Today on the Montgomery County Halloween Countdown, we have the creepiest license plate you're likely to find in MoCo. "Casket" is the vanity tag for a Chrysler 300 sedan staff vehicle at the Robert A. Pumphrey Funeral Home in downtown Bethesda. The black car also features the flashing emergency lights for funeral processions that have become standard on most funeral home hearses in recent years. Don't expect an actual casket to fit into a Chrysler 300, despite the spine-chilling tags.
Today, as we count down the final days to Halloween, let's take a look at the Halloween 1976 edition of The Rockville Mall Times. Yes, Rockville's ill-fated dead mall of the 1970s and 80s had its own newspaper, and it could be as creepy as many considered the mall to be. Especially the Halloween edition. Who was Mr. Barfly, and was he a denizen of the shadows of the mall? Are you encouraged, or discouraged, to visit Ransom's, with Mr. Barfly as the face of the business? His disturbing visage suggests a ransom may indeed be involved to secure your release from his clutches, and from the mall's infamous dark parking garage.
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| Mr. Barfly, a denizen of the darkest corners of the Rockville Mall |
The club is located at 7931 Connecticut Avenue in Chevy Chase. Parking is free in the lot behind the club, which is accessed from Dunlop Street, off Connecticut Avenue. This is a no-contact haunted house experience.
A tour of Spirit Halloween has become a Halloween activity and tradition in itself. New animatronics this year include Lord Raven, Bog Zombie, Monty the crazed cymbal-wielding monkey, Lucky Bottoms, Bag o'Bones, and Nozzles the Clown.
How did these horrors come to be located inside the clubhouse? Unexplained happenings at the club since it opened in 1938 finally made sense when the earthquake a few months ago revealed a hidden cemetery crypt beneath the clubhouse. Those aged 10 and up who can't find enough thrills in the Mystery Mansion upstairs, will be able to descend into The Crypt to find out what's really down there, for an extra fee!
Mystery Mansion is a no-contact haunted house. Outside the clubhouse, enjoy the Bonfire Bash during the operating hours of Mystery Mansion. There will be fire pits with s'mores, live entertainment, photo backdrops for the perfect Halloween selfie, a costume contest on October 30, food and drink sales (including a donut wall and adult beverages for adults), Halloween movies, cornhole and "spooky surprises."
Visit the official Mystery Mansion website for ticket purchasing for all events, and full details.
