Fancy a side of spirits with your spirits? Across the United States, a handful of restaurants have turned genuine paranormal reputations into part of the dining experience — and most of them are worth a visit purely for the food and history, ghost or no ghost.
New Orleans anchors the list. Arnaud's, founded in 1918 and now the largest restaurant in the city, is said to be haunted by founder "Count Arnaud" Cazenave, spotted by staff and guests as a tuxedoed figure tidying the dining room, and by his daughter Germaine, who appears most often in the on-site Mardi Gras Museum. Order the Shrimp Arnaud and keep an eye on that corner booth.
Further west, the picks get rowdier. Big Nose Kate's Saloon in Tombstone, Arizona — the oldest continuously operating saloon in town, once frequented by Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday — is haunted, legend says, by the "Swamper," a maintenance man who died in 1910 while digging for silver beneath the old Grand Hotel. In Jerome, Arizona, dubbed America's largest ghost town, the aptly named Haunted Hamburger leaned into its own poltergeist problems, naming dishes after them: the Haunted Burger and the Ghostly Burger both come loaded with bacon, mushrooms, and cheese.
Near Las Vegas, the Pioneer Saloon in Goodsprings dates to 1913 and carries bullet holes from a fatal 1915 poker dispute on its walls. It featured on "Ghost Adventures," and is famously tied to actress Carole Lombard, who died in a 1942 plane crash — her husband Clark Gable reportedly drank there in the aftermath.
Cities have their ghosts too. Memphis's Earnestine & Hazel's, a former brothel and jazz hangout where Ray Charles once unwound, serves the celebrated "soul burger" under a self-playing piano. Manhattan's Ear Inn, dating to 1817, is said to host Mickey, a sailor who sips from patrons' glasses. In Charleston, Poogan's Porch pairs shrimp and grits with the spirit of a terrier named Poogan, buried on the front lawn and known for brushing against diners' legs. And in Little River, South Carolina, the Brentwood Restaurant & Wine Bistro goes further than anyone: a three-course dinner paired with a ghost tour for $65 a head, several times a month.
The appeal is obvious for a certain kind of traveller: these are working, well-reviewed restaurants with century-old backstories, not gimmicky haunted houses. Most cluster within easy reach of great trip destinations — New Orleans, Charleston, Memphis, the Las Vegas outskirts, and Arizona's old mining towns — which makes it entirely feasible to build a spine-tingling food road trip around them. Halloween is the obvious time to go, but the ghosts, allegedly, work year-round.