The Most Haunted Restaurants in Seattle

Posted: 02.17.2025 | Updated: 02.17.2025

The Emerald City is known for many things: the Seahawks, the Space Needle, grunge music, and indie coffee shops. Yet these draws are only surface level. Just beneath the recent exterior of this rainy city lies a maze of haunted restaurants and history. 

Once a town inhabited by miners, lumberjacks, gamblers, and prostitutes, Seattle was a metropolis for the wild and wicked. Men were murdered, the city was ravaged by multiple fires, and its underground tunnels were used for criminal activities. Many of its modern-day restaurants lie directly atop Seattle’s sordid history, where the stains of the past continue to bleed through. 

Whether you are looking for a filling Shepard’s pie and a pint or simply cocktails and bar bites, there are many options from which to choose regarding Seattle’s haunted eateries. Come, descend down its misty streets on a ghost tour with Seattle Terrors, and afterward, fill your stomach with a hot meal in one of its many haunted restaurants. 

What Are the Most Haunted Restaurants in Seattle? 

When searching for haunted restaurants, you’ll find no shortage of them in the Emerald City. Seattle can provide you with an array of ghostly feeding holes. Kells Pub, Owl N’ Thistle, Merchant’s Cafe, and many others make their bids for being the most haunted restaurant in Seattle. 

From a pub so haunting as to be deemed worthy of a visit by the Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures to a 35-story high restaurant bar, many of these eerie eateries are available to satiate your spooky appetite. 

Kells Irish Restaurant & Pub

Ask many Seattle residents what the most haunted place in Seattle might be, and a good number will tell you it’s Kells. Nestled near Pikes Place Market, this pub resides in one of this city’s oldest buildings that held Seattle’s first mortuary.

The rear side of Kells was once the front side of the Butterworth Building, where countless bodies passed through on the way to their final resting places. Not surprisingly, Kells is home to more than a few spirits.

One ghost, in particular, has been so frequently spotted in one of the bar’s wood-paneled mirrors that he’s been nicknamed. Charlie, as he is called, is spied wearing a derby hat and smiling. Another reported ghost around Kells is that of a little girl in a red dress, who is a sweet and shy spirit.

The Pine Box 

Found on Melrose Avenue in Capitol Hill, the Pine Box leans heavily into its morose past. This craft brew watering hole and eatery resides in a former funeral home. This very site was the expansion building for E.R. Butterworth & Sons Family Funeral Business.

Constructed in 1923, this building operated along with the Butterworth Building. It continued to do so until they sold the business in 1998. Most famously, the funeral services of Bruce Lee and his son Brandon Lee were held within this building. 

Once where Chapel Bar resided, the Pine Box boasts a bar fashioned from old coffin wood. A nice addition to its variety of cold beers and hot pizzas. Its ghostly activity has included moving glasses, flickering lights, as well as a male voice captured as an electronic voice phenomenon. 

College Inn Pub

Found on University Way near the University of Washington campus resides a haunted basement pub with a famous spirit named Howard. Although its pub has only existed for 50 years, the building in which this college bar dwells is much older. 

Listed on the National Historic Register of Places since 1992, the College Inn building was constructed in 1909, opening just in time for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition and World’s Fair that was seated on the nearby campus. 

According to stories, Howard was allegedly a sailor passing through Seattle, sleeping at the College Inn. After being murdered, he decided to take up shop in the building’s basement long before the pub ever moved in. 

It seems he quite enjoys the new company, though. Howard prefers passing his time in the small room towards the back of the pub called the Snug Room, where he is reported to play the piano after hours. 

Merchant’s Cafe 

In Pioneer Square sits a restaurant nearly as old as Seattle itself. Built in 1890, Merchant’s Cafe was designed to harbor its drinkery on the bottom floor and a hotel on the two floors above. These hotel rooms quickly became the site of a brothel where single gold miners and lumberjacks could purchase some company for the evening. 

Nevertheless, the ghostly activity seems mostly focused in the basement. Here, two spirit children are said to reside, who died in a 1938 fire. Ghostly occurrences at Merchant’s Cafe include items being moved or broken, ghostly apparitions, and odd happenings in the women’s restroom.

A ghost named Otto also seems to be a permanent fixture at Merchant’s. Said to be the spirit of a former manager, Otto likes to tug the back of employees’ shirts and comment on the decor. After the former owner hung a new painting, Otto knocked it to the floor, shattering the glass. It seems he did not approve of the new artwork. 

The Owl and Thistle

You’d be sorely mistaken if you thought Kells was the only haunted Irish eatery in town. The Owl N’ Thistle also has a history of spooky activity. The walls of this Pioneer Square restaurant are lined with old tomes and beautiful books. Below, however, lies a bewildering network of underground tunnels. 

Employees have experienced strange sounds and muffled voices, strange silhouettes, odd presences, and kitchenware being moved. One staff member even recounted the piano playing on its own, its keys pressing down, although no hands lie atop the ghostly keys. The haunting apparition of a woman in a wedding dress has also been described outside the employee bathroom. 

Smith Tower Observatory Bar 

Those in search of a more upscale haunted dining experience may find themselves drawn to the Smith Tower Observatory Bar. After purchasing an admission ticket, visitors can ascend to the speakeasy-themed bar on the 35th floor, where a woman in white is said to roam. Believed to have thrown herself from the observation deck, many claim they can hear her cries and sobs echoing throughout the tower. 

Once the tallest building outside of New York City, Smith Tower is home to several legends and haunts. It is said an opaque, gray man haunts the wine cellar, along with other spirits throughout the tower. The ghost of the first female mayor of Seattle, Bertha Landes, is also said to inhabit the art deco-style building. 

Still, the 35th floor is where the strangest happenings are. Where the Observatory Bar now sits used to be the site of the “Chinese Room.” Furnished by the Empress Dowager Cixi, the last Empress of China, its largest attraction was a strangely magical chair. Known as the Wishing Chair, it is said that any woman who sits in it will be married within the year. 

Haunted Seattle

From cafes in Pioneer Square to pubs in the University District, Seattle holds many spooky and haunted restaurants to choose from. Whether you stop in before or after you take one of our ghost tours with Seattle Terrors matters not to the spirits — they’ll be waiting, regardless. 

Keep reading our blog to journey further into Seattle’s dark and sinister past, and be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok to surround yourself with even more spooky content. 

Sources:

• https://www.travelchannel.com/destinations/us/wa/seattle/photos/haunted-seattle-attractions
• https://theticket.seattletimes.com/city-guides/a-ghost-hunters-guide-to-haunted-bars-in-seattle/
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• https://www.pineboxbar.com/about
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