CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — Opening a business during a pandemic is a scary idea, and one restaurant in Cleveland Heights not only did that, but also embraced the "scary" part with open arms.

Ryan Gullatt has a thing for horror movies.

“We wanted to give you the environment of walking into a movie theater,” said Gullatt. “So when you walk in you will smell hot butter popcorn, first thing that hits your mind, I’m at the movies.”

The Cleveland native is proud of a wall full of iconic horror characters inside the restaurant as his love of cinema has been lifelong. 

“My mom would take me to every Friday the 13th, every Nightmare on Elm Street, and I was hooked when I was a kid,” he said. 

Gullatt has become a household name in Cleveland over the years. He's known as DJ Ryan Wolf, the official DJ of the Cleveland Browns. But in the restaurant, he’s using those skills in a whole new way.

“Since I’m a DJ, I kind of got the cheat code, but I put a little mix something together to make it make sense," he said.

His concept for birthday celebrations at the restaurant went viral when he posted it on TikTok.

It featured an emergency siren followed by the iconic sounds from the horror series “The Purge.” Staff members dressed as characters from the film emerge and start dancing as birthday music played.

“We had everybody go crazy,” he said. “They had no idea, kind of went viral, one TikTok page posted, it got a million views. I’m used to it now, but to see the people and the way that they bring their phones out, it never gets old.” 

Throughout the Haunted House Restaurant, Wolf created the ideal dining experience for movie buffs. 

While he has the love for the genre, owning a restaurant wasn’t exactly part of his vision. That was the idea of his godbrother, Andre Scott, and their business partners, who wanted a restaurant concept that was different.

Andre made the decision to call Ryan.

“Ryan, this is what we’re trying to do, this is where this buildings located, what do you have in mind,” Scott said. “And within 15 minutes, Ryan spitted me out a whole concept and called it the Haunted House Restaurant. So I ran in the building and found Jeremiah like, ‘Jeremiah you got to hear this out.’”  

Now that it’s lights, camera, action on the spooky experience, staff members are ready to make up food and drinks crazier than anything Dr. Frankenstein could create. Gullatt hopes the unique experience won’t scare people away from the city, but rather attract them.

“We want this to be a destination place,” Gullatt said. “I love Cleveland, I was born and raised here, and sometimes people say you got to leave Cleveland because you don’t have some of the things as other cities, so I think different and I’m like ‘well no, let’s bring those attractions here, so let’s do something different to make people want to come here.’” 

He also wants to inspire the next generation of black-owned businesses. 

“When you start to do that, more people start to pay attention, and it inspires more people, more youth, more other people that might be scared to take that leap or to try to actually go and do it, it’s a great feeling,” he said. 

Operating a spooky experience, Gullatt has a mission that’s far from frightening. ​