A Haunted Date in Downtown Seattle
Make your date night a lil fweeky š
October 12, 2022
šø: Courtesy Can Can Cabaret
Once fall rolls around, date night gets tricky. Park meet-cutes aren’t quite as cute when there’s less daytime and more rain. Why not lean into the season and find a haunt that’s a bit more haunted? We know Seattleās got a lot of ghosts, and life’s too short to ignore the afterlife. So this month, make your date nights a little freaky, you little freaks. For this planner, we’re hitting up two famously haunted bars and one sexy, spooky cabaret.Ā
Get in the spirit @ Owl N’ Thistle š»
Pioneer Square’s red-bricked Bostonian facade masks one of the city’s mostĀ ghost-ridden areas. People report encountering ghosts here all the time. It probably has something to do with theĀ Great Fire of 1889, which destroyed Seattle’s whole business district. When the city rebuilt itself after the fire, it built on top of this old city, creating aĀ spooky basementĀ of preserved history. Owl N’ Thistle rests inside this underground.
Ghosts haveĀ tickledĀ the keys of the bar’s pianoāallegedly. An employee says they once ran into a ghost while waiting in line for the bathroom. There areĀ strange sounds. Kitchenware moving on its own. All of that goes down here. The place is actually very cozy, with warmly lit stained glass light fixtures and shelves lined with leather-bound tomes. Start your hair-raising evening here with a pile of fish n’ chips and a game or two of free pool, all while keeping your head on a swivel forĀ spirit activity.
šOwl N’ Thistle: 808 Post Ave
Open every day from 11 am to 2 am.
For added chills š„¶
Go on Seattle Undergroundās Paranormal Experience tour. Youāll tour the underground city with paranormal detective equipment in hand to conduct your own ghostly investigation.
Go bump in the night @ the Can Can š
Walk from Owl N’ Thistle to the basement-level burlesque bar in Pike Place Market, the Can Can. Take Post Alley the whole way. Alleys, with all their in-betweenness, are inherently liminal and should be considered hot spots for ghost activity.Ā
Some time ago, while closing down for the night, a Can Can bartender blew out the theaterās candles and went outside for a smoke break. Upon returning, he found every candle relit. Another man swears his daughter befriended a ghost boy at the Can Can. As everyone knows, ghost boys love burlesque!Ā
While youāve found yourself at the Can Can primarily for paranormal interaction, you might as well enjoy a show. Each year, the Can Can puts on a dark, sultry number for fall. This go-around, the show is āHitchcock Hotel,ā which the showās director, Chris Pink, describes as āif The Munsters and The Addams Family moved into a hotel with Frank N. Furter and crafted a cabaret musical.āĀ
If I were you, Iād order a round of Can Can beignets. Itās better to enjoy burlesque while licking powdered sugar off your fingers.
Finish off with more fuel for the soul @ Kells šø
Tonight’s last stop is the most haunted place in Seattle: Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub, which started as a mortuaryĀ in the early 1900s. The entrance to the restaurant is the same entrance the mortuary used to bring in the corpses. Bodies killed byĀ plague, mining accidents, andĀ Dr. Linda HazzardĀ came through those doors. Now, maybe they’re the ghosts who haunt the place.Ā
Just a stone’s throw from the Can Can, Kells sits in Post Alley above Pike Place Market. Ghost Adventures host Zak Bagans, who visited Kells in 2015 for the episodeĀ “Demons in Seattle,” said, “There’s a lot going on in Kells.” Bagans and his team poked around the restaurant and its basement, looking for orbs and spirits. “This place just hasĀ death written all over it,” Bagans said. According to employees, ghostly activity happens all the time. Glasses move across the bar on their own. Peoeple says they’ve seen the ghost of aĀ little girl in a red dress. Bagans thought he caught a picture of the girl on video during his ghost-hunting visit, but it just looked like a shadow.
Maybe you can find the truth about this ghost girl. Debate her existence overĀ Irish CoffeeĀ and some traditional soda bread.
šKells Irish Restaurant and Bar: 1916 Post Alley
Open Wednesdays to Sundays from 11:30 to 2 am. Sundays from 10 to 12 am. Mondays and Tuesdays from 4 pm to 12 am.
Nathalie is a writer focused on anything she finds weird or fun. Sometimes this includes local politics and the environment, sometimes this involves scootering half-nude in Tacoma. She used to work as a staff writer at The Stranger where she did a lot of that sort of thing. She detests dentists and loves costume parties.
