At The Cauldron, be your own bartender. Wizard’s robe and magic wand included.

How to describe The Cauldron, which just opened at 1305 Locust St. in Center City?

Imagine a high school chem lab, but it’s decorated like some low-lit fantasy out of a Rowling novel. So maybe Potions class at Hogwarts.

The Cauldron is best experienced by two or four people: You and your friends get wizard robes and functional magic wands as a costumed “potion master” walks you over to a glittering unicorn on the back wall. You set down your cups in front of the unicorn and tap your wands on a sensor. Out of its mouth come the welcome cocktails.

Back at your table, your potion master approaches with a box holding flasks of liquids such as hydra venom and tincture of elder nectar, plus botanicals and alcohol, like vermouth and rum, as well as detailed instructions to mix the drinks.

Using your wand, you create two illuminating, bubbling, and smoking drinks over a Bunsen burner-like contraption called an enchanted hourglass. Yes, there is fire involved. And plenty of photo opportunities.

It’s a whole lot of loud, geeky, magical pub fun over an hour and 45 minutes, at prices starting at $39.99 a person. Need help? You summon your potion masters by calling out their unique incantations, e.g. “Abracadabra!” or “Roar!” It’s safe, too. You won’t blow up the lab, but you may, for example, set an orange peel on fire accidentally.

The Cauldron, which started in London in 2018 and opened its first U.S. location in New York City in 2019, is also a walk-in bar-restaurant serving such drinks as the Wizard of Menlo Park (a ginger cocktail that shoots plumes of smoke), Ode to Mullica (a bourbon and maple cocktail served in a smoking bell jar), and The Blob (an aloe and tequila cocktail with an expanding head). There’s a love potion, too, called Damiana’s Charm that uses damiana, supposedly a natural aphrodisiac, and a sprinkled raspberry garnish.

All drinks can be made without alcohol.

Magic also informs the British pub-style menu. Fish and chips bubble and smoke with sea salt vapor. The cauliflower cheese is lit on fire and extinguished with liquid ribbons of cheddar. The Elven Bread is a string-tied loaf of sweet bread wrapped in banana leaves, presented on a wooden log with lavender-honey yogurt dip.

Cofounder Matt Cortland, 33, grew up in Marlton, devouring fantasy literature “in large quantities” —The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. “Once you teach someone how to read, they can go anywhere and do anything,” he said.

Clearly, he has.

Out of Rutgers University, Cortland taught literacy and reading with Teach for America. Working at one school in Miami, “I taught the school’s lowest 20% of the readers, kids who were in high school but couldn’t read,” he said. “It was hard, but 80% of the school was below grade level from their reading ability.”

He said the curriculum was simply copies of USA Today. “Yes, you have to teach literacy through the USA Today newspaper,” he said. “These students hate to read, and you’re going to give them the newspaper and then expect them to read? Let’s find something that they connect with. My go-to was fantasy. It has so many themes and tropes that can connect with so many different types of people. The kids loved it.”

Meanwhile, Cortland presented himself a challenge that meshed his interests in fantasy and tech: He wanted to create a working magic wand. A fellowship in Ireland led to a master’s degree in technology design, and with the help of engineer friends, he developed a wand created on a 3-D printer.

“I wanted to share it with the world,” he said. But how? The best application, he surmised, would be an interactive bar-restaurant. Pour a pint with your wand, and then track your payments.

» READ MORE: Speaking of geeky fun: Harry Potter is at the Franklin Institute

Cortland had no experience in the bar-restaurant field but cofounder David Duckworth had years of bar work behind him. Cortland moved to London, where they launched The Cauldron Co., whose heart is its “magicineering” studio, called the Magic of Things. “Our mission is to make magic and fantasy real for people,” Cortland said.

To keep intellectual-property lawyers at bay, The Cauldron’s promotional materials say it’s “broadly inspired by fantasy and science-fiction and is a place for fans of magic. It is not endorsed by, affiliated with, or associated with Warner Bros. or J.K. Rowling or otherwise connected with Harry Potter or J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World or any other specific book or movie. It takes ideas from literary and world history and brings them to life with science and technology. We are but geeks.”

The company has recently taken on investors, thanks to what Cortland calls “a really large addressable audience. I’m not the only person obsessed with wizards and fantasy.”

The Cauldron’s Philadelphia location, in the Gayborhood, will host drag shows, as well.

The Cauldon Co. sees applications beyond bar-restaurants. “Let’s make a magic wand that actually works and actually does the things that people want to use,” Cortland said. “They want to open their curtains and close their curtains. They want to turn their lights on. They want to boil a kettle with magic.”

Can’t you just use a smartphone? “Yes, of course,” Cortland said. “It’s like the Internet of Things, but applying magic to it. We’re just taking things that exist digitally and then actually making them interactive.

“This is for fun.”