Haunted Restaurant?

[Palsgraf]

This totally creeped me out.

I was at work, typing an order into a computer mounted on the wall in the bar.

To my left, there's a long hallway towards the restrooms, a banquet room, and the rest of the restaurant. To my right and behind me, there's the bar - a large room with a full bar and a dozen booths & tables.

I was typing in an order when I heard someone walking - shuffling - up the hallway. Since I heard him or her stop behind me as I finished the order, I turned around before backing up so I wouldn't bump into him or her. I guess I assumed it was a co-worker or a customer either waiting to ask me a question or just looking at the cr*p on the walls. I don't even think I gave it any thought, since this happens all the time.

But I turned around and ... there was NO ONE THERE.

I turned back & forth a few times, and didn't see anyone.

The only other people in the bar was a family seated at the far end of the room, about 50 or so feet away from me: too far away for someone to have walked there in the time between hearing the shuffling steps and then turning around.

I leaned over the booths to make sure there wasn't a small child or someone there out of my sight.

No one.

Totally creeped out, I kept looking over my shoulder as I walked out of the room (NOT through the hallway, but taking the long route through the kitchen back to my tables).

When I told a co-worker, she said, "Go tell [Manager]! She's convinced this place is haunted!"

Haunted? I guess that's better than me being insane. (Or, more insane than I've come to accept.)

I started to tell [Manager] when she interrupted, "This isn't scary, is it? 'Cause, if it is, I don't want to hear it! I have to do inventory tonight all alone by myself."

Fair enough. I'll post it of CS instead.

Anyone else have any haunting work stories?

[lush]

Just one of the places I've worked that has ghost stories, had a few things happen to me here http://hauntsandhistory.blogspot.com...comac-inn.html. Worked there many years ago..

Worked at a B&B where all kinds of things happened as well.. Will post the long versions, if you'd like.

[Eireann]

Please! I love a good ghost story! We need to get hauntedheadnc in on this, too.

[Sheldonrs]

You work in a bar. There's BOUND to be "spirits" there. :-)


(oh, like none of YOU were thinking that!)

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I worked temp at a place that had a second floor that was used for storage. I'm sittin' in a chair at a computer, right near the stairs, typing away, when I hear noise above me. Like someone moving furniture or banging large stuff around.

The supervisor happened to come back in the room just after it stopped so I asked him about it. He turned white as a sheet. Apparently the second floor was notoriously haunted by some guy and most people refused to go up there alone, even in daytime. At night he was more active and people had actually reported seeing him, so a lot of employees wouldn't go up there at night for any reason at all.

It started back up again while the sup was standing there telling me about it. He looked terrified.

I worked there for a couple of months, swing shift, so I heard him all the time. He liked to stomp around up there and shove things around and knock things over. Or at least that's what it sounded like.

I never did get up the courage to go walking up there to see.

[lush]

The Accomac: The pub is tiny, it's really to serve the restaurant, it was typically empty and the bar itself was long enough to hold 4 bar stools. There were two pub tables with two chairs and a piano in there. Most nights it was just me and the cigar store indian.. Too many times to count I would hear "Hey" or a key pressed on the piano. The pub was always empty when that would happen.

I'd also wait tables there, it is fine dining, and tables were set to the exact number of guests. I probably brought this on myself for taunting the "ghosts" (I wanted to see something happen and was always told there were two in a very specific room).

This night happened to be a business group that gave us a head count of 15. We set up, polished up and were ready to go when we got a call that two weren't showing. So we removed two settings and seats and did a double count, repolished etc. Had a few minutes to do our other prep and went back into the room, we now had 12 place settings and chairs.

Yeah 15-2 does not equal 12. We looked at each other, with a WTF, and put another place setting and went for a chair. Came back in and we now had 14 place settings. We fought with it again and finally said the hell with it and left it at 14 figuring we'd just take the knocks from the manager, it worked out anyway because they did end up with 14 guests showing.

B&B stories tomorrow..

[edible_hat]

I don't believe in ghosts, so all my stories when a coworker though the workplace was haunted turned out to be something mundane. The believers don't bother looking for the real explanation and just say "oh it must be ghosts". Three examples:

Strange noises in the walls turned out to be kittens that somehow got into the gap in the wall.

Strange shadows in one corner of the store turned out to be insects inside a light fitting (occasionally blocking the light).

A whole shelf collapsing for no apparent reason turned out to be an earthquake too small for humans to sense.


(and here ends my involvement in this thread, since past experience had shown that people who don't believe in ghosts are evil according to some who do)

[Food Lady]

You work in a bar. There's BOUND to be "spirits" there. :-) (oh, like none of YOU were thinking that!)

No, but that's why we love you. LOL

[Kittish]

I don't believe in ghosts, so all my stories when a coworker though the workplace was haunted turned out to be something mundane. The believers don't bother looking for the real explanation and just say "oh it must be ghosts". Three examples:

Strange noises in the walls turned out to be kittens that somehow got into the gap in the wall.

Strange shadows in one corner of the store turned out to be insects inside a light fitting (occasionally blocking the light).

A whole shelf collapsing for no apparent reason turned out to be an earthquake too small for humans to sense.


(and here ends my involvement in this thread, since past experience had shown that people who don't believe in ghosts are evil according to some who do)

Nah, you're not evil. You just haven't encountered an actual ghost yet, or if you have you found some plausible mundane explanation that for you accounted for it.

I've encountered ghosts in situations where there really wasn't any plausible mundane explanation. Not that I minded, mostly. I find it comforting to feel a cat walking up my legs and settling down purring and kneading on my chest when I'm kicked back in bed reading, even if I can't actually SEE the cat in question. This has happened to me more than once; I get fairly regular visits from a couple of cats I've had that have passed away.

At one place I worked, several of my coworkers swore up and down the building was haunted (there had actually been a couple of employee deaths on the site), but I never saw any convincing proof of that. All the tales of mysterious noises and sightings were always second hand at best, and in all honesty I have to take one co-workers words with a grain of salt. I could 'sneak up' on this lady by walking directly toward her with her facing me and looking in my direction, and she wouldn't become aware of me until I was 4 or 5 feet away from her, whereupon she would start violently and sometimes even scream.

[Eireann]

This night happened to be a business group that gave us a head count of 15. We set up, polished up and were ready to go when we got a call that two weren't showing. So we removed two settings and seats and did a double count, repolished etc. Had a few minutes to do our other prep and went back into the room, we now had 12 place settings and chairs.

Yeah 15-2 does not equal 12. We looked at each other, with a WTF, and put another place setting and went for a chair. Came back in and we now had 14 place settings. We fought with it again and finally said the hell with it and left it at 14 figuring we'd just take the knocks from the manager, it worked out anyway because they did end up with 14 guests showing.

There's a superstition about having 13 people sitting at the same table. The first one to get up will die within the year.

[lush]

There's a superstition about having 13 people sitting at the same table. The first one to get up will die within the year.

Creepy, as superstitious as my grandmother was, I'd never heard that one..

The B&B had all kinds of stories from guests and staff. The owner was a wonderful man who took employees in like strays, he took care of us (when I left my marriage he took me house to house and made sure I had furniture and appliances because I'd left with nothing). Several employees lived there, I stayed there for a bit myself.

My personal experience in it (I'd heard the stories, and chased sounds several times..): We were closing up the restaurant, it was me (I was the night manager) and the bartender. The part of the restaurant I was in was blocked off from the bar. I heard my name. I went to the bar, asked the bartender what she needed, she looked at me like I had two heads.. Figured I was hearing things, I went back to cleaning. Then I saw a woman in a white dress walk past me out of the corner of my eye. Shocked, I figured somehow it was a trick of light and I'd caught myself in a mirror, I spent quite sometime trying to make it happen again. I couldn't, I got creeped out and went and sat in the bar waiting for her to finish closing up. I didn't tell anyone what I'd seen.

Several months later we had hired back an old chef, we were sitting one night swapping stories about the place when he told me he'd seen a woman in a white dress... I had to tell him about my run in with her.

The one lady that lived and worked there (she was jack of all trades, housekeeper/dish washer/server..you get the point) was very no nonsense. She told me about a time when another employee that lived there burst into her room, jumped in her bed and covered himself head to toe with her blankets. She literally asked him WTF was his problem..he stammered out "The shower is on" so she told him to go turn it off. Problem was, he hadn't turned it on, it turned itself on. One night when I was staying there the shower in the next room turned itself on, I was the only one with the master keys, so I know nobody was in there.

The other manager told stories about sitting there after close and dishes dropping to the floor, they would have had to lift up to get out of where they were to fall..

[Antisocial_Worker]

Please! I love a good ghost story! We need to get hauntedheadnc in on this, too.

You rang?

When I have time I'll be sure to post in here. I live in what is reportedly the fifth most-haunted city in the USA. It's hard to live here and not have a ghost story to tell.

[Eireann]

You rang?

Lurch, from "The Addams Family"!

When I have time I'll be sure to post in here. I live in what is reportedly the fifth most-haunted city in the USA. It's hard to live here and not have a ghost story to tell.

Well, there you go!

[calulu]

When I first moved to the town I live in I couldn't get a job anywhere but the local movie theater as a manager/projectionist/doer of all positions. The cinema I worked at had another location in the same town. Our cinema was located in a shopping center and was newer but the other location was in an old building and had been a vaudeville theater before it was turned into a motion picture theater in the 1920s. The old theater was extremely haunted. I heard the tales while working at my theater but every now and again I'd get called to go to the old theater and work for the evening as they had trouble keeping staff. At first everything seemed normal but then weird things started happening, like I'd start the film, set up my tools, i.e. splicer, tape, etc, on the work bench, leave the room and lock the projection room door (3rd floor) and go count the money from the box office. Upon returning twenty minutes later to make sure the projectors were functioning correctly I'd see everything had been totally moved around while I'd been gone. This would happen every night I worked there.

One night as I came into the closed balcony from locking up the projection booth I looked out over the theater and saw every seat filled. I had to do a double take because I'd checked box office before coming up and there were only ten tickets sold at that point and the place held over four hundred people. When I looked again the seats were empty again.

After a while this shadowy figure started to materialize up in the balcony and the town old timers claimed it was Mr Pitt, the man who'd build the place back around the turn of the century. Saw him so many times that after a while it lost all shock value. He kept showing up, things kept being moved around the projection booth and everyone working there saw these things and other phenomena.

Years later a weird cult bought the building and I had to wonder if any of them saw old Mr Pitt and the others.

[Fufu487]

I used to work in a very old retirement home in my town. I did kitchen work, dishes, set up snacks, assist the chef in putting plates together, etc. I ussually worked alone after the 1st hour of shift. This place was, wihtout a doubt, haunted. The younger staff knew it, felt things, saw things, the older staff denied EVERYTHING and insisted we were crazy.
There were more than a few times I would swear I heard someone walking around the kitchen but there was noone there (its a very open kitchen, impossible to not see someone in it). And there were other times that you would find the utensil tray in a very odd spot, most definately not where you left it. Like, instead of it being on the counter where it was left, it would be on the top shelf inside one of the cupboards we never used. Keep in mind, noone else is working in the kitchen with me.
I had one time I went outside to put the garbage out. You have to walk out a door and the garbage bin is just far enough out of reach that the door has to close behind you. When I went to go back in, the door was locked. This door is a deadbolt lock that can only be locked from the inside. Again, noone else was in the kitchen with me and theres no way someone would have had the time to bolt into the kitchen and lock me out. I checked the door when I got inside and it was indeed locked. It creeped me out.

Being a retirement home, I'm not surprised it was haunted tho. I'm sure some old residents still hang around...