Long time lurker, finally decided to share. Some background, I've been in the restaurant business since birth, literally my mom's water broke in a restaurant that my parents had owned at the time. Growing up I spent almost all my time doing the bitch chores involved with running an Italian restaurant and by the age of 12, I was managing the place when my family couldn't be there.
In 2009 continuing a long stint of bad decisions, I sold out of my partnerships in two very successful restaurants and decided to go on my own, family is hard to work with and I'd had enough.
A friend of mine was looking to sell his small restaurant in an old Connecticut town, it was a perfect situation, I could get in super cheap and my over head would be next to nothing. The new place wasn't that big, a few hundred square feet on the main level and a finished basement approved for food preparation, that housed storage, mixers, refrigeration and a small stand alone office. It had been a grocery/vegetable stand since the late 1800's until it was eventually turned into a restaurant. You could tell the building was very old, the old stone foundation could be seen at various points of the structure.
In the beginning it was just myself, a cook and my girlfriend at the time, who was 12 years my junior and an ex employee from my first business. She was an absolutely out of her mind, a nutty 20 year old with a ridiculous ass, serious oral fixation and major daddy issues. Dealing with her was like having a second full time job.
For the first few months of operation, things were normal. Eventually as the weeks passed, little things would happen here and there, new equipment would malfunction, refrigerator doors that were securely propped open would mysteriously slam on the cooks hand and there would be these serious cold spots, legit like 30°colder than anywhere else in the place(the downstairs office was the epicenter of these cold spots). Whenever alone in the place there was this sinking feeling that all employees shared and started to discuss. We didn't think much of these little events, we would even joke about the place being haunted and laugh them off.
"Lights" The first major "event" that shook us all happened to myself and two other employees. It was closing time, we had just finished cleaning and prepping for the next day. We had this ritual that at the nights end, we would hang out for a little while shooting the shit and watching funny videos online, I loved bonding with the employees, they were like fam. When we were ready to leave this particular night, I walked over to the light switch that controlled all the lights on the main floor and turned them off, I walked over to the two other employees and before I could say a word, all the lights came back on. We froze and looked at each other in disbelief for what seemed to be forever. I walked back over and the switch was in the on position. I turned them off again and we quickly gathered our things and got the hell out. Again we sort of just wrote it off as a coincidence or human error type deal.
"Ipod" We had an Altec Lansing speaker setup from a computer, with an aux cord, so that we could plug in our ipods or phones to play music while working. When ever we were busy and there were a lot of people in the place it would act up. Full house of customers and it would go from volume level 2 to 10 and be unbearably loud. Only when it was busy, as if whatever was there didn't like people in it's presence. It would periodically change songs, one time changing a Sublime song, to putting on Highway to Hell.
"Water boy" A few days later my dishwasher, a young high school kid who was a really good kid, comes running upstairs pale as could be and shaking. I asked what's going on, he said "it' not funny anymore". Again I asked what the hell he's talking about. "Were you just downstairs?" I had been upstairs the whole time and it was just the two of us in the whole place. He went on to tell me that as he was washing dishes, he heard laughing from over his shoulder and felt something push him from behind, as he turned to see no one there the water coming out of the faucet went from cold to unbearably hot and burned his hands. I let the kid go early that night, so that he could clean the shit from his pants. This is when I knew something was up, that basement man. There was a 6th sense that seemed to activate every time I was down there. Hair on my neck would point north and this cold breeze on my neck and back that seemed to follow me.
"Furby" We had a dining area and people would always leave random shit behind. That's how our little furby mascot came into existence. The Furby toy was broken, it hadn't worked since day one, we even put new batteries in it to have something to pass the time with, but it was a no go. We would always put furby in a funny spot or position for little laughs throughout our shifts. One night at closing time, everything was shut down in the place and I was counting out two if my employees. We were discussing the recent events and how we all felt something was off, out of nowhere Furby starts laughing and talking. We all shit. One of my employees, who was one of the guys saying that hauntings don't exist and disputed all these events as coincidence, walked over and picked furby up and placed him on the counter. In a jokingly manner he started talking to the furby and asked "what is it furby, what are you trying to say?" Furby responded with 'Beee scared" accompanied by creepy laughing. My employee, whom ever so quickly turned believer now, slammed furby on the counter until the batteries flew out and ran outside to throw him in the dumpster.
"Following me" My business partner at the time owed me money and happen to have a beautiful house nearby that he was renting out. Having the young girlfriend around all the time I figured it would be nice to have a place nearby to, umm, just use your imagination. So he rented me a room in this massive house for free to offset what he owed me. I set up a nice bedroom there, the rest of the house was already furnished. Whenever we slept there, we experienced the same cold and bleek feeling that we felt at the store. One night, I woke up midsleep, felling totally miserable, hopeless, freezing cold on my neck/back and paralyzed. I cried, I literally cried that's how strong the feelings were. Cried for no reason.
Two days later, the girlfriend wakes me up via elbow to the ribs, literally convulsing and freaking out. I grabbed her arms and shook her until she awoke, she told me she had a crazy dream and described exactly what I had felt two days prior. The next night we came home together after work, as we walked upstairs to our bedroom we both felt something strange, almost simultaneously we said let's not sleep here tonight, both in agreement we packed up a few things to head over to my parents house. As I shut and locked the bedroom door behind us and continued downstairs, the bedroom door creaked open by itself. Reluctantly I went back up to close it, as I returned to the bottom of the stairs, we discussed how freaky these events were, an upstairs door to a different room slammed shut. We were the only ones in this house. Moved out 5 days later.
"Dough mixer" This was one of the last events that took place before I had seeked assistance. I was by myself downstairs making a batch of dough. We used a 50 quart Hobart mixer, for anyone that knows, this is a serious and heavy piece of equipment. I went about my routine adding the ingredients, when I felt the cold on my neck again, there was no doubt about it, something was with me. Side note_My sister is pretty spiritual and I had been telling her what was going on, she said the next time you feel it, verbally tell it to leave. At first I thought it was silly but as I affixed the 40 pound dough bowl onto the machine, I felt it's presence stronger than ever. I turned the machine on and walked across the room to grab some dough trays, as I came back to the machine a few minutes later I walked through a cold spot, so cold every hair on my body stiffened. I shouted, "leave now, we don't want you here" Just then, the 40 pound dough bowl, full of 50 pounds of flour and 5 gallons of water shot off of the machine and flew across the room, throwing it contents everywhere. I left the machine running and ran upstairs just to be near someone. I instructed two guys to go clean up the mess and closed early that night.
"Lorraine Warren" One of my employees working the night of the dough bowl incident was the nephew of Lorraine Warren, a semi famous "ghost hunter" here in ct. He said he also felt something downstairs and suggested I speak with his aunt. Of course I agreed. After a 40 minute call with Lorraine, she concurred that something was definitely not right and instructed me to call a priest to bless the place, she said not to tell him what was going on, because he would not come, Catholic priests don't acknowledge hauntings or evil spirits. She said to ask him to come bless the place so that it does well in business, once I got him in the door I indirectly told him, he was reluctant but continued. Lorraine also sent over some sage, we burned it all over the entire restaurant.
"The sale and fire" Things calmed down for the most part after the priest came through, but we still felt uncomfortable there. I sold the place after having it for only one year. After selling the place, getting rid of the crazy girlfriend and the apartment, I fully felt like whatever it was left me alone.
Three years almost to the day that I sold it, the place caught fire and burned down. The fire started in the basement from an electrical short in a dehumidifier.
Submitted February 04, 2015 at 05:29AM by fz203 http://ift.tt/1zG1fHz nosleep
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