Episode 62.3: Your Spaghetti Warehouse Stories
/We are on the road to Ohio, so we cut together some of your spooky experiences inside the spaghetti-belly of the beast.
Featuring Sara, Mike Schubert, Jake Song, Wil WIlliams, Paul M., Chris P., Alex Brown, Lucille Valentine & Mani, and James Oliva.
Written and edited by Eric Silver.
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About Us
Spirits was created by Julia Schifini, Amanda McLoughlin and Eric Schneider. We are founding members of Multitude, a production collective of indie audio professionals. Our music is "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0.
Transcript
JS: Welcome to spirits a drunken drive into --
AM: We're in Ohio. Purt, purt, purt!!!
JS: Shhh. Amanda, yeah, that's right. We're on a bus headed to Akron, Ohio.
AM: So, for those of you just catching up, here is the skinny.
JS: The skinny?
AM: You know, the, the gist, the summary, the cut, to the feeling
JS: The skinny. Okay. Eric got attacked by a ghost, who was traveling through the internet.
AM: Let's not forget Julia. Who you summoned.
JS: Super not important. Apparently, Eric looks just like an old-timey pharmacist. So, the ghost thought he was her husband. So, she took him back to Spaghetti Warehouse, where they're gonna have a lovenest kind of thing.
AM: I don't really know. In any case, that's where we come in. We don't have a plan exactly yet. But we figured, if we show up there in Akron, we can get him back. So, we are, right now, underneath a sweatshirt on the road recording this episode for you.
JS: Oh, my god. Amanda, there's someone reading the Necronomicon on a bus casually like it’s – like it's Fifty Shades of Grey.
AM: Fifty Shades of Grey. Fifty Demons of Grey. Fifty Shades of Demons. I don’t know the best bet.
JS: No. They’re, they’re all bad.
AM: Come on.
JS: So, we're delivering a clip episode to you. A few weeks ago, we asked for your Spaghost stories. Thank you for sending them all in. You're all beautiful hobos riding the rails in our hearts.
AM: So, now, we are presenting you – Julia and I, meanwhile, are gonna go ask that lady about summoning a creature to make this bus ride go faster. I hate buses. Ma'am, Excuse me. Sorry.
JS: Okay. Enjoy. Oh, wow. I never thought I would say this. Enjoy Spirits Podcast Episode 62.3: Your Urban Legends Part VI Spaghettigeddon .
Intro Music
Sarah: Hey, [Inaudible 1:44], my name is Sarah. And I live in Houston. I actually sent the first Spaghetti Warehouse email, the one that started it all if you will. And I know tons of spooky stories about Spaghetti Warehouse because I do haunted pub crawls in Houston. So, we used to start our pub crawls at our local Spaghetti Warehouse. But, unfortunately, our Spaghetti Warehouse was ruined in Hurricane Harvey. But I still maintain that it's one of the most haunted locations in Houston. And I'm going to tell you guys about the most active ghost and the one that I have a little bit of experience with. So, way back when Spaghetti Warehouse first opened, it started out as a vegetable and produce storehouse. And then it became a pharmaceutical warehouse. And the most active ghost there comes from when it was a pharmaceutical warehouse. One night, one of the pharmacy workers, he was kind of in a rush to get home and wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing. And he was upon the third-story of the Spaghetti Warehouse. He goes over to the elevator, not paying attention, not checking to see if the elevator is actually there, and ends up misstepping into the empty elevator shaft and falling to his death, breaking every bone in his body. Meanwhile, his new bride was waiting very patiently for him to come home. She had made him dinner and everything. And she had just been waiting for too long. So, she went to go check on him at work. And that's where she found her husband’s dead body. Now, you would think that that ghost from this comes from the husband, but the ghost is actually the bride of the pharmacy worker. She ended up dying a year to the day later of unknown reasons. I like to think she died of a broken heart maybe. And it's believed that her spirit returns to the Spaghetti Warehouse looking for her last love. Even now that the restaurant is closed, you can still walk past it. And I have seen her specter dressed all in white out of the second-story window. Y’all, she looks really sad. I feel bad for the girl.
Music
PM: Hey there, friends. My name is Mike Schubert. I'm here because I had some anecdotes about the Spaghetti Warehouse. I went to Rice University for college and, during that tenure, I visited the warehouse a few times for dinner. Their food is okay. It's subpar, but that is kind of par for the course when your food establishment is named after a food and then an industrial size building. CNC, also, the Cheesecake Factory. But I have a few things to add about the Spaghetti Warehouse. First, their website is meatballs.com. And that is phenomenal. Whoever decided that they needed to buy that URL is a genius, because that's just fantastic. Second, when I visited the warehouse for dinner, the first thing I noticed was that giant trolley car. And it looks incredibly out of place. It is just smack dab in the middle of the restaurant. And it has nothing to do with the rest of the restaurant. There are various knickknacks all throughout it, but it's not like there's a trolley car theme. There's also no trolley car system in Houston nor was there ever. So, I don't understand why they had the trolley car especially if it's haunted. Third, one of the explanations of why the building is cursed is that it used to be a pharmacy and a gentleman that worked there fell down an elevator shaft and died and now haunts the building. Now, the problem with this theory is that the warehouse is a two-floor building. So, this guy just fell down an elevator shaft that was a story tall. That was it and then he's dead. I feel like that should be broken bone territory, not necessarily death. And, finally, I went there with a date. And shortly after that date, we broke up. So, clearly the restaurant has to be cursed. That's the only reason I can think of that someone would want to break up with me.
Music
Charlie: Hey, so, my name is Charlie. I – well, I work at the Spaghetti Warehouse. I've been there for – I don't know – a little more than a year. Usually, I'm the one closing. And, well, it can get kind of scary in there. So, at first, I didn't believe anyone, right? Like, I swear the staff feels like a cult with this stuff sometimes. But they'd always be like whispering to each other about all the paranormal stuff happening. Like spices and food disappearing, things being moved around. And, oh, there's this one really funny story that my coworker, Justin, likes retelling, where the general manager got hit in the back of the head by a plate that shot off one of the shelves. It's hilarious. And the general manager is an asshole. So, it's fine. Anyways, the more I work there, the more stuff I kept seeing for myself. Like there's this one spot by table 12 that always smells like – I don't know how to describe it – like sour. The customers always complain about it. Saying it ruins their palates or whatever. I don't care. I’ve really only gotten a whiff a couple of times, and I've completely lied out of my ass to them saying it's just cleaning solution or what have you. But it smells like – I don't know – kind of chemically. Like, it burns your nostrils really bad. So, anyways, here's the biggest thing that's happened. What really convinced me that something was going on. So, it was really late at night, like right around closing time. And I was alone in the kitchen finishing up with everything. You know, like getting ready for the next day. And I heard someone walking around in the hall where the bathrooms were. And I didn't think anything of it at first, but then I heard the footsteps come up like really fast behind me. And I whirled around really quickly, and this lady with the craziest look in her eye, she was just staring up at me like not even a foot away. And she doesn't even wait for me to stop screaming. She's just like, “Where's my husband?” just like that. Just like that. “Where is he? Where's my husband?” At first, I thought she was a customer and tried to talk some sense into her. But she just kept yelling at me. So, I turned around to yell for one of my coworkers to help me. And, when I looked back around, she was just gone. You know, the scariest part? When I told my coworkers, they all told me that the last of the customers had paid and left 10 minutes beforehand. And they’ve just been wiping down tables. I didn't see anything since, but, sometimes, I hear these like fast footsteps down the hallway and like muttering. And I just kind of, you know, get the hell out of there as fast as I can. I don't want to be accosted by some dead lady again. Are you kidding me? Oh, yeah, so, that's my story. Bye.
Music
Will: Hi, y'all. This is Will and Zach recording live from the front of the trolley in the Old Spaghetti Factory.
Zach: You have to talk so loudly.
Will: Yeah. I really hope you can hear me over ambient noise. We've just had our first – our first course. It was – it happened.
Zach: It was all right.
Will: It was all right. I do get --
Zach: Better than Olive Garden but cheaper.
Will: Better than Olive Garden and cheaper. I do get general senses of dread here. I'm not sure if it's because of ghosts or capitalism. We have our main courses. Zach got a taste of Italy, which is a platter of the chicken alfredo or, I’m sorry, fettuccine alfredo and lasagna. I've got ravioli and tortellini. I figured we would record our first takes on the food. I hate the main food.
Zach: These lasagna noodles are super soft. It did not come, come close [Inaudible 9:53].
Will: You know, it’s pasta. It’s gonna be way too soft. Let's do this.
Zach: Meat tasted as meat does. But, yeah, it's, it’s a meat lasagna.
Will: My cheese tortellini tastes like nothing, but I don't hate it. We will check back in if we feel any more ghostly vibes. Bye, y’all.
Music
Male 1: So, a few years back, my wife and I went to a place in Houston, Texas called The Spaghetti Warehouse. Now, when we had arrived, it was early afternoon. And we were the only two patrons in the restaurant. We were seated towards the front and my back was to the entirety of the dining room. So, the waitress came out. She took our drink order. We ordered our food, I get my normal chicken alfredo. My wife gets the spaghetti. And we're sitting in there waiting for the food, and this is kind of when the weird stuff started. So, I couldn't help but feel like there was just something watching me as I was just sitting there waiting for my food. Now – and the best way to describe it is almost like this type of creeping atmospheric pressure that was just falling on my shoulders. Like the room was just getting heavier. I started to sweat. I was feeling nauseous, a little bit lightheaded. I didn't know what the hell was going on. So, I excused myself on the table, I got up to go to the bathroom. I got in the bathroom. And the first thing that hit me as soon as I walked in the door was the smell. Now, it wasn't the kind of smell like, like you would get with cleaning materials. You know, like bleach or ammonia, things like that. This type of odor was different. It was almost like a strong synthetic industrial chemical type of smell. It was really overpowering. I, you know, got in the stall. I sat down. I started looking at my phone. I just wanted to really hurry up at this point. I was kind of feeling strange. And I look up and something catches my eye. And what I see right outside of my stall are a pair of shoes almost, like, as if a person is standing right there directly in front of the stall facing it. And this really freaks me out because, A, when I walked in there, there was nobody in the bathroom. And, B, there were multiple stalls. So, if there was somebody in there and I'd miss them, they could very easily have just went to one of the stalls on the side. So, I cleared my throat. And I guess they got the idea. I saw them walk backwards. And the shoes disappeared from view. I hurried up. I got the hell out of there. I got back to the table. The food was just about there. I ate the food super quick. The waitress came out with the check. I slammed the cash on the table, and I got the hell out of there. I was not even waiting for the change. It didn't matter today. So, we're walking back out to our rental car. And I just had this feeling as we're walking. Like this compulsion to look backwards. And I did and what I saw scared the shit out of me because it was halfway up in the building right towards the middle of this window. I saw this lady and she was very, very old-timey looking almost, like, as if she had some type of, you know, high cut dress. Like this Victorian type of thing with the lace neck thing. And her hair was up. And we made eye contact. And we held it for a second. The next thing that I saw was that she just stepped backwards out of sight and just faded into the blackness. And, yeah, I mean I just couldn't get into my head all day. And I got down to give them a Yelp review. I gave him four stars because my Alfredo had nutmeg in it. And, seriously, who the fuck puts nutmeg on Alfredo?
Music
Male 2: So, there's a Spaghetti Warehouse in Tulsa, Oklahoma, my hometown. And, growing up, I used to eat there all the time. And I never knew anything about a haunting in the Spaghetti Warehouse. But, now that I'm older and I live away from my hometown now, but, when I go back, I’m gonna take my wife there. And she apparently always notices spirits. So, I'm gonna take her there and see what she thinks. And, eventually, I'll get back to y'all and see what she thinks. I've never heard anything about haunting. The closest to ghosts I ever saw in that place was the PacMan machine at the front lobby.
Music
Female 1: There was this one time when I was working at Ye Old Spaghetti Town. And, if you kind of know what, like, a medieval time is, it sort of was like that except without a lot of the medieval or the times. I mean we dressed in kind of weird period costumes, but, like, the time periods were sort of messed up. Like part, parts of us were in Wild West sort of garb, and then other people were in the medieval times. And then some people were kind of dressed like the future. It was just – it was sort of a mess. Anyway, so, I worked there, right? And you know how I haven't really ever been to a medieval times, but I think I heard there's like jousting stuff that happened. So, we have joust there too at Ye Old Spaghetti Town, but they're kind of dependent on what you're wearing. So, like imagine if you can like a cowboy going to square up against someone who looks like Marty McFly in Back to the Future when he actually goes to the future. And Marty McFly is band with a – was armed I should say with a hoverboard. Just a hoverboard. It's Marty McFly and a hoverboard and a cowboy with a fake gun, and they are about to duel. But the thing is it isn't really – it's not us. It's not the employees who are gonna duel. Like, I think it would be at any sort of kind of regular, I guess, establishment of this kind. It's, it's the guests. It's the guests. So, you can imagine the kind of waivers we have to sign. So, so, there was this one time where we had kind of that situation. There was a cowboy and Marty McFly. And, surprisingly, Marty McFly beats the cowboy. I don't really kind of want to go into the details, but, suffice it to say, the cowboy was kind of like knocked out and, and down to the ground. But that's when things sort of got interesting because everyone was so distracted by this cowboy Marty McFly fight that no one noticed that all of the spaghetti on all of the plates had just vanished.
Music
Male 3: Okay. So, reflection time, I enjoyed it. It was good. Someone said that – like one of the people that was – that went beforehand were like talking about it. So that it wasn't. That it was pretty, like, average. But it's like I don't know what their situation was, but, for me, as like someone who grew up poor and is currently poor, this was like good.
Male 4: Right.
Male 3: It's like just like being able to go out is a treat. So that I had a good time. Nothing spooky happened. I really liked the ambiance though.
Male 4: Mhmm. It was the power of gay love obviously.
Male 3: Yeah. It prevented the ghost from killing us, which is really --
Male 4: We had a --
Male 3: -- which isn't fair because, honestly, if the ghosts really knew anything about gay love, they know that gays love ghosts.
Male 4: I know. This is blatant ghost sparker oration.
Male 3: I like that.
Music
Sam: Hi. My name is Sam. And I'm not from Houston. But I – well, I dated a girl who, who went to school there. And, you know, I visited for a little while. And, and one of the places that they like – that she liked going to with her friends was this Spaghetti Warehouse thing. And, well, nevertheless, at some point, I went there. And, and I was visiting her. And we broke up. And I still had days left in, in town. And, you know, I knew people there. So, I, you know, stayed with a couple of friends of mine. And, of course, they wanted to go out to Spaghetti Warehouse on, on, basically, any given night. And, you know, I was worried that I would see my girlfriend there. Her name was Veronica. But, but I wanted to go as well anyway. Like, I wanted to – you know, just in case I did bump into her, we could – we could talk. You know, last minute, all, all my friends, they, they just canceled on me. They – you know, like, I was – I was gonna go there, and then they canceled. So, you know, there I was. I was – I was on my way already – I was actually already there and I was hungry. So, you know, I went in. And I thought maybe, you know, I would see, you know, Veronica there. And, so, I got seated at a table next to another young woman that was there by herself. And I was there by myself too. So, anyway, I was feeling kind of brave, because I – you know, I didn't – I didn't see Veronica and, you know, be – you know, just in case, she did stop by with her friends and all that, you know, I could be sitting with this girl. So, I asked her, you know if she would, would like some company. And, you know, I was trying my best not to be creepy. And, you know, which is hard to do in a situation like that. I – she said yes and I introduced myself. I said, “Hi, I'm Sam.” And she said that her name was also Veronica and – but, you know, it wasn't – it wasn't the same girl. She – you know, she – this, this girl had blonde hair. And she was a little – she was very, very pale and just – but, but really pretty. And, so, you know, we talked. We talked for, for a really long time. And, you know, she, she had already had – you know, had a drink. But, you know, she, she wasn't eating anything yet. But I ordered and had my order taken over to the – to this table now, you know because it was no big deal. It's just – you know, I sat over one extra table. So, we talked the whole night and it was really great. Anyway, like, I had so much to drink. Nothing alcoholic. Just like tea. I had a lot of tea. So, I excused myself to go to the bathroom. And, you know, she asked me not to go. And I was like, “Well, if I don't go, we're all gonna float out here.” I don't know why I said that. It was really – it was really silly. And, so, she didn't really laugh. And, so, I went to the bathroom anyway. And, when I came back, she was gone. And I was – I thought I'd scared her off or that, you know, she just didn't like me or if I said something stupid. Or, you know, she clearly didn't want to give me any of her information. You know, I just thought it was strange. And then I looked over where she had been sitting. And there was just – it was just a – there was a plate of spaghetti where she had been. And I don't know. It's just weird because I – why, why would there be a plate of spaghetti where she was sitting? Like, literally in her seat. Like, that was just weird. Like, why did she just, just peace out on me? Like, she ghosted and left a spaghetti plate in where, where she was sitting. So, I asked the managers. I asked – I asked the wait staff. And, you know, granted they were – they were really nice, but they were also really concerned because they said that they had seen me talking the whole night to a plate of spaghetti. That I had been talking to a plate of spaghetti the whole night. And, in fact, on top of things, I did happen to get a text later on from Veronica that said that she was really concerned about me. And that, that she was concerned that I was talking in a restaurant to a plate of spaghetti.
Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor: Krizia Casil