BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – From its highways to its cemeteries, Florida has plenty of spooky tales to keep you up at night.
However, this Central Florida tavern isn’t just the spookiest in the state — it’s considered the most haunted restaurant in the country, according to research by Smoky Mountains.
The study says that Ashley’s Tavern in Rockledge generates a lot of buzz online, with over 800,000 search results dedicated to its “mysterious hauntings.”
While there are several ghost stories associated with Ashley’s, the most popular is the tale of Ethel Allen, a 19-year-old woman who reportedly frequented the tavern in the 1930s before she was murdered.
The back of the restaurant’s menu discusses the tale and the posthumous hauntings, which have been reported throughout the building.
“(Allen) was last seen at the restaurant. Her body was mutilated and burned and left on the bank of the nearby Indian River,” the menu reads. “She was identified by the tattoo on her thigh: a rose with a noose around it. No one was ever arrested or charged with her murder.”
Several news articles from 1934 show that Allen was last seen with a man named William “Billy” Wilson, whom investigators suspected was responsible for the murder. No motive was ever confirmed, however, and detectives were unable to find him.
Back then, the restaurant was known as “Jack’s Tavern,” though its name changed several times over the years — the “Loose Caboose,” the “Mad Duchess” and the “Sparrow Hawk,” to name a few — before settling on “Ashley’s Tavern” in 1985.
Legend has it that Ethel Allen still haunts the tavern.
According to a TODAY newspaper article from 1982, former manager Judy Cowles was checking the women’s restroom before leaving for the night. She saw a pair of legs clad in boots under one of the stalls, but when she checked it, she found that the stall was empty.
“I only saw them for a couple of seconds, but the reason I noticed them at all was because I’d never seen anybody wear those kinds of shoes before,” Cowles was quoted in the article. “The only other time I’d seen boots like those was in old pictures of people at the turn of the century. I was definitely curious.”
In addition, the water in the water basin will sometimes turn on unexpectedly, and a few people have seen an image of a young woman in the restroom mirror, restaurant officials claim.
Just this year, two servers felt as though they were “pushed” while coming down the stairs. Also, random songs began playing while everything was turned off, and glasses on the bar have broken untouched, tavern manager Victoria McGlothlin told News 6.
Paranormal investigator Steven Kurtzke comes to the restaurant every Monday from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. to discuss the legends with customers. He claims to have taken pictures of the ghosts using specialized equipment.
Those images include a photo of a little girl in the upstairs portion of the restaurant and a thermal image of a tall “woman” in an old-time dress found in the hallway.
Aside from Ethel Allen, Kurtzke said that there have been other ghost stories reported at the tavern.
“There’s the spirit of a 7-year-old girl that’s here, and she was last seen in 1940. She was here with her father, and he was being arrested, taken out of the building, and the little girl was wearing her favorite blue dress,” Kurtzke said. “It’s a dress that goes all the way to the floor, ruffled at the bottom.”
Kurtzke explained that due to its background, the restaurant is actually a designated historic site.
“It’s a very unique historical building because if it changes hands over and over, they can’t turn it into a movie theater or a Dollar Tree — it has to stay a restaurant. It is protected,” he said.
Other TODAY newspaper articles from 1982 cataloged mysterious events at the restaurant, which went under “Gentleman Jim’s” at the time.
In an article from that year, a photographer said he snapped some pictures of the restaurant for a story before realizing afterward that a “subject” in dark clothes had appeared in one. He wrote that he “wouldn’t go back in there for anything.”
[YOU CAN READ THE ARCHIVED STORY BELOW COURTESY OF THE BREVARD COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION]
0575_001 by Anthony Talcott on Scribd
Several stories detail psychic-led investigations into the restaurant, eerie tales from local police who were called there, and another spirit (nicknamed “Sarah”) who was accused of harassing the employees.
One such story explains that two girls had rushed into the police station after entering the supposedly locked building — only to find a man bursting down the stairs talking about having “killed them all.”
After police went to check on the place, they found the door was unlocked but with no trace of the man, and the manager had told them she’d locked the door herself, the story says.
[YOU CAN READ THE ARCHIVED STORY BELOW COURTESY OF THE BREVARD COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION]
0577_002 by Anthony Talcott on Scribd
Despite all of the legends, Michael Boonstra with the Brevard County Library Services told News 6 that there is no definitive proof of Ethel Allen having any association with the tavern, nor was she murdered there.
The spookiest incident News 6 witnessed during a trip to the restaurant was when the whole building began shaking — though that was more than likely due to the Brightline train passing by behind the building.
Even if you don’t believe the ghost stories, the restaurant is still a notable hangout for many of the locals, and it offers plenty of dishes for customers to enjoy, such as chicken, sandwiches and “Irish nachos.”
For more information, you can call the restaurant at 321-636-6430 or visit its Facebook page.
For inquiries into the restaurant’s paranormal legends or investigations, you can call Kurtzke at 321-795-0375.
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