Del Rio is a city with a quiet current of underground spirit activity, according to many, with a history going back hundreds of years.
Supposedly, there are ghosts hanging out at the nearly 100-year-old Roswell Building. Seems like Mrs, Perry, who died Nov. 4, 1899, is walking around in her former apartment at the historic Whitehead Museum. South Main Street, with its hundred-plus-year-old-buildings have visitors from the Spirit World on occasion some claim.
However, according to staff, one of the most active homes of haunts is our local international pancake house, IHOP, according to the restaurant’s midnight shift.
The IHOP franchise is a bit more than 60 years old, and our local restaurant is much younger than that.
From a corporate perspective, the company wants no part of talking about it. However, according to local employees, there were and are some members of the graveyard shift that were never seen, but they made sure the staff knew they were there.
“At iHop a lot of stuff goes on [during the ] graveyard [shift],” one employee wrote on the Del Rio Community Spotlight page. “We heard stuff and stuff gets thrown and falls. And the sodas machine goes off. We hear ‘hey’ all the time and laughing. They even said our name. Grab ur leg which has happened to me. Someone will tap ur shoulder.”
Others have reported seeing a tray of glasses fall.
One employee took the attached photo and feels it shows something in the bottom left hand corner.
Another graveyard shift employee says she’s felt the presence of spirits, but never felt in danger. “It’s like they want us to know they are there,” the employee said. “But we’ve never sensed they want to hurt us.”
There was a video on the Del Rio Community Spotlight page that showed a tray being thrown across the room. However, the video has been removed. At 830 Times, we look at videos like this with a very jaded lens.
However, we agree, something happened here. If it’s exactly as the employees say, this is a case for the television show Ghost Hunters. According to employees on the graveyard shift, there were only two people in the restaurant at the time. They are both on screen when the tray sails across the screen. It’s difficult not to take people at their word, but people have tried to trick the world before. If the video was staged, well, they get a gold star for effort.
We didn’t use people’s names in this story because they were concerned about keeping their job. We felt like it was a story worth telling, although we must emphasize, if there are haunts in IHOP, no one has ever been harmed or even felt threatened.
However, they bring an all-new meaning to Graveyard Shift at the House of Pancakes.
