Dinner With a Ghost alchemically blends history, fine dining, and paranormal investigation into a night of anticipation and wonderment unlike any other. The Dinner With a Ghost experience is uniquely satisfying because it fully engages the body, mind, and spirit through a multi-course gourmet meal, riveting presentation on the history and key personalities of the host location, and warm engagement with any spirits on hand. In fact, Dinner With a Ghost is so solicitous of spirit sensibilities that a place of honor is always set for them at the head of the dining table.
That table is always the fulcrum of the event, brought to life with fine china and crystal place settings, theatrical lighting, and dramatic rock crystal centerpieces. On the paranormal front, a full complement of digital audio recorders, alarms, REM-pods, motion detectors, K-2 Meters, DVR cameras, and a laser grid is poised to measure and record activity, with special attention given to the spirit place setting.
The Dinner With a Ghost crew are like old friends you didn’t know you had, all personalities brought something to the experience!
Las Vegas Adviser Magazine
Las Vegas, Nevada
A Dinner With a Ghost event is a three-day project, developed, refined and perfected over ten years of experimentation. We begin with a pre-investigation on day one as the DWAG team tours the host location looking for the best spots for the dinner table, cocktail party, and post-dinner paranormal investigation. As we tour the building, we make a point of inviting any spirits present to join us for the Dinner With a Ghost meal the following evening.
For the Presidents and Kings Tour, in addition to inviting spirits to attend our dinner event, we also conduct a formal interview with the spirit of the president or king associated with the building, respectfully referencing historical events and personalities that might trigger a response. We set up a full array of monitoring equipment at the interview site to alert us to any ghostly presence and capture any response or activity, and we reiterate our invitation to the spirit or spirits to join us for Dinner With a Ghost.
Day two, the day of the event, begins with meticulous meal preparation by our executive chef, and setting of the table, decorations, lighting, and equipment by our team. The event begins as we welcome guests – typically not more than thirty in order to keep things intimate and personal — with a pre-dinner cocktail party. Hosted by a DWAG team member and a guest host associated with the location, a sponsor, or relevant personality, we discuss the agenda and rules of the evening with the guests, answer questions, and get to know each other.
After the cocktail party, we usher guests into the dining area and seat them at the table to begin their five-course meal. Guests are asked to remain silent throughout the meal as DWAG team members try to facilitate a visit by one or more resident ghosts to the table by asking deeply researched historical questions about the presumed spirits’ professional and private lives, families, contemporary events, and the like.
Once dinner is completed, guests prepare for a night of paranormal investigation throughout the host location. Guests are taken to the most promising hot spots to investigate under the supervision of DWAG team members using the latest equipment and techniques including trigger objects, historical references, and empathetic questioning.
Dinner was spooky and fantastic!
Vaucluse Lounge/Claire
Hollywood, California
Dinner With a Ghost – Presidents and Kings Tour
After ten years of development and perfection of the model through hard-won experience at events throughout the Southwest, we are ready to take Dinner With a Ghost on the road and deep into the heart of American history with the Presidents and Kings Tour.
We will present the DWAG experience at historic landmarks and homes associated with American presidents including Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Madison, James Monroe, Harry Truman, Woodrow Wilson, William Henry Harrison, James Buchanan, Millard Fillmore, in addition to Confederate States of America president Jefferson Davis and Republic of Texas president Sam Houston. On the “kingly” side of the ledger we have Elvis Presley, Martin Luther King, Michael Jackson, B.B. King, Davy Crockett, and many others in the offing.
The Presidents and Kings Tour is planned to begin in March, 2017, and work its way across the southern tier of the nation through the spring before circling up the East Coast and back across the northern tier. We will carefully tailor the historical presentation, atmosphere, and even period costuming to make each event on the tour visually and historically compelling, as well as amenable to spirit interaction.
The tour will be recorded for TV presentation, either in episodic or documentary film form, and will appeal to viewers from a visual, historical, travel, storytelling, and paranormal investigation standpoint.
The tour will be marketed nationally via paranormal media, social media, and sponsorship/partnership; and in each market via local media, world of mouth, grass roots networking, and cooperation with the venue.
Thank you to everyone who makes Dinner With a Ghost possible. Amazing time, we had a blast!
Rosey Rose
Rosey Hot Mistchasers
Reno, Nevada
Dinner With a Ghost Team
John Cushman
In 1977 John walked from NYC to San Diego, CA as part of “The Walk for Humanity” to ignite excitement and inspire kids with Muscular Dystrophy. After John’s momentous journey across the country, he continued to work with foundations, charities, and educational organizations to assist the next generation in becoming future leaders. John has also dedicated a part of his life to history, becoming an expert on the Civil War era, as well as one of the Western region’s biggest collectors of Civil War memorabilia. John has also authored a book series called History Through the Eyes of a Child.
The preservation of history became the impetus for John in creating Ghost Town Operations, aka GTOPS, a team of paranormal experts with proven track records in ghost hunting, film and video production, as well fine dining. The GTOPS team has traveled thousands of miles to date to film ghostly encounters, host events, and to help national historic towns preserve their individual unique stories for the benefit of all. John’s vision is to bring Dinner With a Ghost to some of our nations most famous and historical landmarks and pay homage to their ghostly inhabitants.
Kevin Fretz
Kevin has had an intimate relationship with the paranormal world since he was a young child. His clairvoyant gifts and innate ability to connect with the other side have allowed him to interact with fully realized apparitions on multiple occasions. Kevin and his GTOPS partner John Cushman work together as a team creating a powerful conduit to the other side.
Recently, Kevin and GTOPS they made history in the paranormal world in Goldfield, Nevada after speaking to a spirit entity named Frank for over three hours. In addition to co-hosting Dinner with a Ghost, Kevin personally vets the “haunted” credibility of each location by conducting a pre-investigation on his own.
Justin Cimock
Justin grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada where he and his friends conducted numerous ghost hunts leading to several bone-chilling encounters with the paranormal. In 2002 Justin joined the U.S. Navy where he spent four tours of duty in Iraq, and after five years was honorably discharged.
In addition to being part of the GTOPS team, Justin has his own podcast and writes films. He is always seeking out paranormal activity and enjoys communicating with spirits from the other side.
Zachary Cushman
Zach, having a penchant for the paranormal world, has followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming am instrumental part of the GTOPS team. Zach is in charge of all things technical regarding GTOPS. He sets up all the equipment and cameras in order to capture any possible paranormal events. In addition to filming and recording all paranormal occurrences, Zach assembles, edits and documents all footage for the GTOPS/DWAG team.
Chef Dan Adams
Chef Dan Adams was born in Virginia and was active at the Association for Research and Enlightenment at a young age. He moved to North Carolina at the age of 11 where his interest in the paranormal continued as well for his love of all things culinary. After serving a tour in the US Navy he returned to NC and opened a bar and restaurant that he ran for three years. Having met many people in the music industry, Dan toured extensively with rock bands as a lighting and pyro technician. After returning home Dan worked a slew of other culinary jobs. In 1998 Dan moved to Las Vegas and later he opened The Hungry Eye Café, a gourmet sandwich shop. For the next ten years Chef Dan worked with John Cushman and the Ghost Town Operations team as the Head Chef on all the DWAG events in Gold Point Nevada. In 2011 Chef Dan attended the Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts for an official certificate in culinary arts.
Chris Brunner
What is not seen is not to be believed. Chris Brunner was born in Monterey, CA, hails from San Diego, and has been a member of GTOPS and Dinner With a Ghost since 2012. In his spare time Chris plays guitar for the Southern California band Terrans. He is a deep thinker who lives and dies through research. Chris has a vast knowledge of world history and all things paranormal, and without him the Dinner With a Ghost experience would not be what it is today.
Eric Olsen
Career media professional and serial entrepreneur Eric Olsen is delighted to be marketing and media director for DWAG. Olsen created and hosted the syndicated alternative-music radio and TV show Cool Tunes in the ’90s, and was a pioneer of internet radio in the ’00s, creating and hosting the most listened-to show in BlogTalkRadio history, Storytellers. He is co-host and producer of wildly popular After Hours AM/America’s Most Haunted Radio, and co-host/producer of The Lineup podcast. He also served as media director for National Ghost Hunting Day.
Olsen founded online magazine Blogcritics.org, the multiple award‐winning “sinister cabal of superior bloggers” in 2002. He is the creator of the America’s Most Haunted brand and co-author of the AMH book (Berkley/Penguin). Olsen is also author of NETWORKING IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY and THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RECORD PRODUCERS, and is guitarist/singer for popular and crazy Cleveland cover band The Props.
We attended Goldfield Days in August and I want to thank Ghost Town Operations for an experience we will never forget! My daughter and I went on the paranormal investigation and enjoyed every moment. As the night wound down I approached John, the owner of Ghost Town Operations, and asked him if we could go back into the girls locker room and say goodnight to the little girl spirit who hides in the locker room.
John agreed and as we headed back down the long dark hallway back into the girls locker room and it was completely dark. John had us back up to the wall near the door and he went to the center of the room and knelt down and laid his ghost voice box on the floor. He spoke to the little girl, telling her that we wanted to say goodnight. Then he also said he wanted a hug goodnight on the count of three. John started to count, “One, two, three.” Then, to his surprise, he fell forward. He thanked the girl for the hug, and then the girl hugged him from the back and John leaned forward! John then told the little girl that it was such a great hug and he asked for another. John started to count again, “One two…” And then over the ghost box you heard the word “three,” and again John leaned forward as she hugged him.
We thanked the little girl and most of all we thank John for the heartfelt moments of the night that we will never forget! “Class Act John”! Great times, Ghost Town Operations!
Marge and Cindy Martin
Boise, Idaho
Share This
Share this post with your friends!