With a city as rich in history as Pensacola, it’s no surprise that haunted tales are interwoven into the city’s fabric, with urban legends and ghost tales wafting through the walls of popular restaurants and watering holes.
This Halloween season, you can order your meal with a side of spookiness if you know where to look. Check out these haunted pieces of Pensacola history in the Pensacola area dining scene, and you decide if you believe the stories the buildings hold.
Intermission
214 S. Palafox St.
Before there was lively downtown Pensacola dive bar Intermission, there was Child’s Restaurant, a long-loved restaurant often frequented by lawyers and well-to-do businessmen. The historic restaurant left a lasting impact on the downtown area, from the “hungry” tilework imprint on the sidewalk to the alleged ghosts it leaves behind. The restaurant was considered the longest-operating family-owned restaurant in Florida until it closed in 1987.
When Pensacola historian Wesley Odom, owner of Go Retro Tours, recalls his conversations with Intermission’s founder Mike Ashby, there was one night that Ashby couldn’t shake when he heard his name in the bar at 2 a.m., when he and a bartender were counting the register and working on paperwork at the end of the night. Ashby searched everywhere after hearing the voice, but the source of the sound remained undiscovered. His spooky experiences didn’t stop there. About a year later, he heard his heavy, 70-pound metal-frame doors open and slowly shut on their own, leaving him and his employee to marvel at each other in disbelief.
Upon bringing psychic Sharon Renae back with Odom to the bar, she detected a presence invested in the bar’s success, a female who “doesn’t like competition.” Renae even asked Odom if Intermission employees ever feel like someone is standing over their shoulders, watching them count the cash. Could it be the strong-willed matriarch of Child’s Restaurant, Mrs. Padakis? Odom seems to think so.
It seems that this bar’s potential protectors have also resurfaced, with one apparition allegedly captured on camera in the window at 6 a.m. following a major flood in 2014 that washed over Palafox Street.
Seville Quarter
130 E. Government St.
Seville Quarter’s resident ghost, a former barback named Wesley. Wesley allegedly lied down to rest in Seville’s freezer the ‘90s while bringing bottles of beer, where he was found deceased from a supposed heart condition, according to Odom.
“It was a permanent lay down, he never got back up,” Odom said. “He died in the cooler.”
Wesley had a draw to women, and one of the most noticeable places where guests sense his presence is in the women’s restrooms on the lower level. Wesley’s photo still hangs in the halls of Rosie O’Grady’s.
Old Sacred Heart Hospital (O’Zone Pizza Pub, A Mano Panino, The Burrow and more)
1010 N. 12 Ave.
Just a tad off the path downtown lies a historical relic of Pensacola’s past, the former Sacred Heart Hospital at 1010 N. 12 Ave., now known as Tower East.
While the gothic, castle-like structure once housed some of the city’s most advanced medical procedures, it is now under restoration and home to retail, office and restaurant tenants, including O’Zone Pizza Pub, A Mano Panino, The Burrow, A Curious Wine Shop, Lamonte Gelato and more.
Brothers Michael Ritz and Aaron Ritz are the buildings’ stewards and holders of the building’s histories and its urban legends, which are, at times, mistakenly interwoven by its visitors.
The Ritz brothers, history enthusiasts, can often pull back the curtain on most rumored hauntings, but they don’t always choose to. Sometimes they’ll just smile and nod along when they hear a story of an apparition hiding at the bottom of a staircase, a seemingly unexplainable burst of light flickering under a doorway without anyone ever touching the switch.
But they find that the building’s structure often offers an answer to the unexplainable, due to the original float glass windows that manipulate light, the ventilation that allows air and light to circulate, creating creaking, or the concrete that expands or contracts with temperature changes.
The building is often perceived by outsiders as a spooky place due to its Gothic architecture and hospital background. However, Aaron Ritz would counter that those who died in the hospital often went out under circumstances of intimate and life-saving care, given that the hospital was significantly smaller than it is today. When they did pass, the bodies didn’t stick around for long, as autopsies were uncommon, and the bodies were often transported out of the hospital within an hour, Aaron Ritz said.
However, some of the lower levels of the building, such as where Ozone Pizza is today, have grasped onto some of the lore. Over time, Ozone has been nicknamed the morgue. Was it really? The Ritzs would have to set you straight on the history: Ozone’s current location is where the hospital’s kitchen used to be, where meals were prepared and sent out, including the 130 gallons of coffee made there every morning.
While they do have many answers to the claims created in the historic hospital, there are some stories still left to decipher.
“The one, the closest we can ever get to a so-called ‘haunting’ was one time when Dad was here, and he was trying to finish something up, and just said out loud, ‘I wish there was a light.’ A light came on,” Aaron Ritz said.
“We don’t know who turned on the switch,” Michael Ritz added. “My father said, ‘Okay, it’s time to go. Must be time to go home.’”
Blount Building block (Halloween Fire of 1905) – NYN, Global Grill and V Paul’s
Palafox Place
While not tied to an individual restaurant, the Halloween Fire of 1905 is definitely worth noting, according to Odom, as a major chunk of downtown Pensacola where establishments such as NYN Badlands, Global Grill and V. Paul’s reside today.
As any good spooky tale starts, the fire erupted on Halloween night, engulfing a block of Palafox Street and “several terrific explosions” after reaching a sporting good store stocked with gunpowder and ammunition, according to an old account from the Pensacola Journal.
At the heart of the fire was the Osceola Club, a gentleman’s club not to be mistaken for a modern day strip club, according to Odom.
The fire was so severe, firefighters from Mobile, Alabama, were notified that they may need to assist, the Pensacola Journal stated.
The fire was controlled several hours later without any casualties from the fire; however, the spooky tale still lingers over downtown over a century later.
For a full haunted histories, find out more from Odom at Go Retro tours, such as his walking cemetery tour, witches of East Hill tour, downtown walking ghost tour and more.
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This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Ghosts, grub and booze: Haunted Pensacola bars and restaurants with a ghastly backstory
Reporting by Brittany Misencik, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
