ENTERTAINMENT

Ghoulish Goulash? The Ghostly Gerst Haus on Evansville's West Side

Aimee Blume
Evansville

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — The last in our series of Haunted Restaurants is the Gerst Haus, where stories abound of bodiless footsteps, mysterious voices and ghostly children playing near the buffet. 

By far the most commonly encountered ghost at the Gerst though is a man wearing a blue uniform or workman’s coveralls. He has been seen in the basement and in the dining room.

We spoke with former Gerst Haus manager Cindy Reitz, who worked in the building for more than 20 years.

“People say they hear things, especially upstairs,” Reitz said. “They hear people running or moving things, but the third floor is padlocked, and there isn’t anyone in the halls when they hear it. I had one server who refused to go upstairs at night; she’d pay somebody to go up there if she had to because she said she knew there was somebody up there.”

Most often, Reitz heard stories about the male ghost in the basement. Once, an employee’s young daughter of about seven or eight was down there with her mother and asked who the man was, although there was no man, and she had never heard any stories of a ghost.

“I’m the biggest nonbeliever in the world, and I thought people just ‘saw things’ because they were looking for it,” Reitz admitted. “I’d tell the servers ‘you’re full of crap, you just don’t want to do your job,’ until I saw him myself.”

Early one morning Reitz was in the dining room alone and saw a man out of the corner of her eye. He was wearing blue pants and a plaid shirt and was on the short side. She figured he was a delivery guy waiting on a check or signature from her.

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“I turned around to ask how I could help him, and there was nobody there. So I asked Paul (Ankenbrand, Gerst manager) what happened to the delivery guy. He said there hadn’t been any delivery guys that morning.”

Reitz also had trouble with candles on the tables burning mysteriously when she opened before lunch.

Gerst Manager Janet Trautvetter would make sure candles on the Gerst Haus' tables were blown out at night, only for manager Cindy Reitz to find them lit the next morning.

“The servers are supposed to blow the candles out at night,” she said. “I would tell the other manager Janet (Trautvetter) that the servers were leaving the candles on one certain table lit and to make sure they put them out because it was dangerous. She kept swearing they were all blown out. One day I came in, and she’d left a note saying to check the camera for 10:30 p.m., so I did. I saw her pick up the candle and blow it out and hold it up to the camera so I could see that it was out. But when I came in, the candle on the table next to it was lit. This went on for a couple weeks, and then it just stopped.”

If you go

The Gerst Haus is located at 2100 W Franklin St.

Phone: 812-424-1420

Hours:

Monday - Thursday 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

Friday – Saturday 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

Sunday 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

The Gerst Haus reports that it is handicapped accessible

gersthausevansville.com/