Liv True is the owner of Zero Bar & Grille, a year-round Halloween-themed bar that opened a little over a year ago off Riverside Street by the Ramada Plaza hotel in Portland. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)

PORTLAND — On a wall by the fireplace in the lobby of the Ramada Plaza on Riverside Street, a sign with an outline of a dog’s head points in the direction of Zero Bar & Grille.

Not until you go past the fitness center and the ice machine, down a hallway of rooms and through two doors is there any indication that this isn’t going to be your typical hotel bar.

Even as you approach the door, passing windows with decals in the shape of skulls, bats and spiderwebs, you’d have no reason to think they’re anything other than seasonal decorations this time of year. But they won’t be coming down in November.

The entrance to Zero Bar & Grille, a year-round Halloween-themed bar that opened off Riverside Street a little over a year ago. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image

Zero, named after owner Liv True’s miniature Australian shepherd who is named after the ghostly dog in “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” is a year-round Halloween-themed bar and restaurant. That’s a lot more apparent from the entrance at the side of the building, where the hands and legs of giant skeletons dangle from the roof overhang, flanked by gargoyles.

Anyone who knows True, with the haunted house she has tattooed on her upper arm and the skull-shaped trinkets that filled her Portland home before she brought them here, isn’t surprised that this is what she decided to do with her bar.

Still, she said, “my daughter thought I was nuts.”

Zero opened just over a year ago, but True has been imagining it a lot longer.

As a bartender in the same sprawling space when it was Seasons Grille, she would think about how she could do things better: bring in pool tables and make use of the back room, where there are now dartboards, pinball machines and, on Tuesdays, country swing dance classes.

Liv True, the owner of Zero Bar & Grille, stands by Table 13, where seated skeletons make it a popular spot for families. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image

When the venue’s lease became available, she jumped on it and, with the help of her regulars from the bar, went to work tearing up carpet, scrubbing down the kitchen and covering the walls and surfaces with spiders, bats, witches, ghosts and skulls in all forms. A giant skeleton greets people at the door and two human-sized ones, including a child in a high chair, sit at table 13, often joined by families in the flesh for dinner.

“Everybody, when they hear Halloween, they think scary, spooky,” True said, but that’s not what she’s going for. “It’s more fun, cute Halloween.”

Zero Bar & Grille is a year-round Halloween-themed bar that opened a little over a year ago. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image

Although the theme attracts other fans of the holiday, True has broadened the customer base by filling up the calendar with bands and weekly events, including karaoke and cribbage. Receptionists at the hotel said guests appreciate that there’s always something to do at night.

Two sessions of bingo on Thursdays — the first with a music theme, followed by a “naughty” one — bring in the biggest weekday crowds.

Two women who met working at Market Basket were there last week well before it started, as they always are, at the same table in the lounge. Bingo, they said, isn’t the only thing that brings them back. The staff have become like friends, and you can count on the DJ to turn even your worst day around. They love the food, especially the buffalo chicken pizza, and the decor, because it’s something different.

James Ostrander, 70, a professor at University of New England’s medical school who was staying at the Ramada Plaza, has a beer at Zero Bar & Grille. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image

Aside from Halloween weekend itself and the Zombie Prom on Oct. 24 (the biggest event last year after True’s own 50th birthday party), she doesn’t know if she’ll see a big spike in business this month in the lead-up to the holiday.

Things have been picking up since Labor Day, now that there’s less competition for music fans who want to go to outdoor shows while they can, she said. She’s also gotten a boost from a TikTok video, posted by Maine influencer Jessica Annè this summer, that has over 90,000 views.

Between the startup costs and the $10,000 loss from a break-in this spring, she thinks it will be another year before she makes back the money she’s put into it. She still works her day job, bookkeeping for Overhead Door Co., her family’s business.

True doesn’t have to worry about a lull after Halloween though. Two weeks later, it’s Friday the 13th, when people will be invited to come dressed up as their favorite character from a horror film.

After that, she’ll get out the Santa hats and light-up sweaters for the skeletons and start decorating for Christmas.