Chicago Illinois
That Steak Joynt / Adobo Grill / Roots Handmade Pizza Building
The spirits of two murder victims, one of them very nasty,
have been and may now be attached to this building.
Spirits of various temperaments have been attached to the displayed antiques.
DESCRIPTION/HISTORY
This three story Victorian style building was built in 1872, and shares a wall with the business on its right side, the Second City Comedy Club. On this location in the 1860s, another ornate building (a large factory built by Henry Piper) once existed, housing his business, Piper’s bakery. It was described as being a major source of bread for the region, and also shipped bread across the United States.
When the great fire of 1871 roared through Chicago, Piper’s bakery and bread factory burned to the ground. Henry Piper rebuilt his business in an even more beautiful building, the right wall of which was attached to the shop next to it. On its left side, there was a winding alley called Piper’s Alley.
After sixty years of success in the baking business, Henry Piper retired in the 1920s. The ornate decoration inside this beautiful building, and its structural layout (designed by Piper), attracted a variety of businesses, including a laundry and a hardware store. The hand-carved art decorum, the glorious woodwork, and sculptured baroque ceiling gave whatever business located there a most enjoyable ambiance.
In 1962, the building was bought by Billy Siegel and Raudell Perez, for their new restaurant and bar, That Steak Joynt. Siegel and Perez, during their renovation and remodeling, kept the lovely decorum, and added to the art and beauty inside. The original bakery case, which had been hand-carved from black walnut by artisans, was turned into a bar. Siegel and Raudell Perez added a leaded glass window for its shelves, topped off with a marble statue of a happy peasant holding a wine container.
The restaurant had two floors connected by a Victorian-style staircase. There was a main dining room and bar area on the first floor, an upstairs dining room, and a smaller, lower level dining room. Throughout the restaurant, one found many antiques, works of art, and stained glass, all purchased from art dealers or from estates of homes in Chicago.
The result was a lovely, popular upscale white table cloth eating establishment, very popular with the living, for people looking for an elegant dining or social drinking experience, with an old world European artisanal feeling.
After Raudell Perez died, the building was eventually sold to The Adobo Grill in 2000, another upscale restaurant with a bar, specializing in Mexican food. The new orders remodeled and renovated the space, changing wall colors, giving it a more modern / ethnic Mexican feel, adding Mexican art and adornment, pleasing to its customers. They followed in the footsteps of That Steak Joynt, offering great food and a pleasing, yet very different decorum and style.
HISTORY OF MANIFESTATIONS
The spirits of people who have their lives taken from them, often stay near where it happened, even moving into nearby buildings.
Lumber Baron Bed and Breakfast, CO (Two young girls were brutally murdered).
Kennebunk Inn, ME (A young bride was brutally killed by her womanizing husband).
Lucky’s Tavern, FL (A mob soldier was shot dead just outside this building).\
That Steak Joynt Building, IL (Around the turn of the century, two people were murdered in two different instances in Piper’s Alley, which existed there at the time, but is long gone).
Spirits can attach themselves to their favorite worldly possessions.
Curtis House Inn, CT (The spirit of a former owner has attached himself to his oil portrait, hung above the cash register. Uh oh).
The Henry Clayton House Museum, AR (The spirit of Powell Clayton likes to visit his special books that are on display in the office of his brother Henry).
That Steak Joynt Building, IL (There were many art items collected from various homes, buildings and mansions from all over Chicago, some of which might have had spirits or energy attached to them).
(When the portraits of William and Katherine Devane were purchased and hung on the wall along an interior staircase, perhaps more than great art was brought into this establishment).
(The art dealer who owned them reported that they had a creepy aura, claiming that the paintings brought him bad luck. The painting of Katherine fell on his foot in an unusual manner, which strengthened his resolve to either quickly sell the paintings or destroy them).
What happened in this building, and which spirits occupied it over the years, is unknown. Mean persons with nasty attitudes don’t usually improve when they die and decide to haunt the living.
Comedy Club, CA (The spirit of the Mob’s torturer and executioner is still a vile individual).
Irma Hotel, WY (The guest from Hell hasn’t left yet. Though he is still a nasty, murderous soul, all he can do is threaten and give off negative vibes).
Shanghai Tunnels, OR (The spirits of crimps who kidnapped and poorly treated people are still here, notable for their red eyes).
That Steak Joynt Building, IL (The spirit of a vicious, woman-hating bully still lurked in the building, actually attacking a waitress).
Renovations and remodeling can stir things up in the paranormal world.
UVM Booth House, VT (One past spectral owner has major issues with the covering up and painting of all the lovely wood that he put in himself).
MANIFESTATIONS
Auditory, Visual and Tactile Experiences:
During the 30 plus years when That Steak Joynt occupied the building, it was entity central, with many paranormal events witnessed by many onlookers. This made it hard to keep employees, especially those who worked before the place was open for business, during the late shift, and/or after the restaurant and bar closed for the evening. Especially hard to keep were janitors and cleaning staff. The entities became more active, ready to party, getting their chuckles and venting their feelings at the expense of the staff.
Auditory Manifestations
These included strange footsteps, singing, and unusual sounds in rooms or places in the building where there was no one living around.
Women’s bathroom: Witnesses in the stalls have heard the sound of women’s shoes clicking across the floor and the rustle of long skirts. Of course, no one else was in the bathroom at the time.
Visual Manifestations
Raudell Perez, customers and employees saw shadowy figures, apparitions, strange lights, and other odd signs of the paranormal world.
After closing time, Raudell Perez saw what looked like two people go up the staircase together.
He ran after them and caught them disappearing into thin air in the dining room.
On one occasion, the Bartender was adding up sales for the night, when he saw two yellow eyes staring at him.
Strange lights were seen around the women’s bathroom.
Tactile Manifestations
These have been felt in the staircase, in the second floor dining area, and in the foyer.
Witnesses reported feeling a cold spot on the stairs, followed by a cold wind.
Customers and staff reported that something unseen had touched them, or brushed past them.
In the women’s restroom, the doors of the stalls have been known to be held shut from the outside by an outside power.
Scary Tactile
There were three frightening incidents involving a male spirit who was probably a violent man with anger issues while alive.
When a staff member was locking up the front door at closing time, he felt a cold, unfriendly hand grab his shirt and pull him back. He turned around and no one was there.
Bartender verses the angry entity – A bartender was going up the staircase, when he suddenly felt a cold, hand roughly grip his shirt, trying to pull him over backward. He whirled around after gaining his balance to face his attacker, only to find no one living there.
A waitress was busy clearing tables in the upstairs dining room, when the unseen, cold hand of a male presence grabbed her wrist so hard that it turned white. She felt herself being violently dragged toward the staircase by a force too strong to stop.
She screamed and the manager and a busboy raced up the stairs to find the scared, shaken-up waitress flat on the floor with a broken high heel and a red hand print around her wrist. A red alert was called and the manager and staff immediately searched the place and found no one.
PSYCHIC RESEARCH
During the 1980s, local medium Robert Dubeil held regular seances in That Steak Joynt, and made contact with three spirits, though they didn’t tell him why they were haunting the building.
He contacted the entity of the architect who designed the building, the entity of a valued female customer of Piper’s Bakery, and an unknown male entity.
Billy Siegel’s theory is that the female customer and the unknown male entity could be the spirits of the people killed/ murdered in the alley long ago. The male entity may not have exactly been a choir boy in life. He may have had violent tendencies and a hatred of women, which got him killed eventually.
First Investigation: April 6th, 1991
The Ghost Research Society (GRS) team was accompanied by Celeste Busk of the Chicago Sun-times, a gutsy, not easily scared reporter who stayed the whole night. Equipment and teams were set up in three areas: The main dining room and bar area, the upstairs dining room, and the smaller lower-level dining room.
Many disturbances occurred, includingthe appearance of lights not made by anything in this world, cold spots, strange magnetic readings in the dining room, and psychic impressions from two team members near the happy peasant bust in the bar.
Pictures developed from cameras proved to be revealing: 35 mm photos taken of the happy peasant later showed “strange figures of bluish white lights” hanging around it.
Pictures taken from two different cameras in the upstairs dining room caught an apparition described as monk-like, which showed his top half, his legs and feet, but no lower torso.
Second Investigation: April 14th, 1994
The GRS team brought along Janet Davies from Channel 7, ABC Eyewitness News, and the joynt was jumpin’.
A dim apparition appeared in the dining room, sitting at a table on a chair. It disappeared when approached.
Caught on videotape: The door to the kitchen opened by itself, against the natural draft which flowed in this area.
Strange sounds were recorded and heard, including: footsteps, the sound of a body being dragged across the floor, and strange noises on the stairs.
A camcorder mounted at the top of the stairs recorded a “woman’s moan, followed by a high-pitched squeal”, and two “gutteral growling” noises, which were also heard by the investigators.
The scent of flowers and the smell of something burning were noticed all night, and cold spots were felt.
PARANORMAL FINDINGS
The Steak Joynt Building offered the full paranormal sports package in both personal experiences and in the realm of hard evidence as well. Both Psychic Investigators, like local medium Robert Dubeil, and paranormal investigators, like The GRS team, found a jackpot of paranormal activity.
Billy Siegel and Raudell Perez invited the GRS group to come investigate That Steak Joynt.
For both GRS investigations, the spirits became more active, and were not afraid of the paranormal investigators or their equipment. The entities were perhaps more reserved during the first investigation than the second, when they were more like themselves.
STILL HAUNTED?
Probably, unless a private exorcism or blessing has been performed, or all the things that once drew the spirits to the building have been somehow eliminated in the remodeling.
The spirits of the murder victims are probably still there, as they are attached to the land and area around.
The spirit of the architect may still be there as well.
The owners of Adobo Grill claim that they haven’t experienced anything paranormal. They could be fibbing, or perhaps the entities are just being quiet for the moment, just observing the living.
For 40 years before the opening of That Steak Joynt, paranormal activity was very quiet, if not non-existent. It was probably the remodeling and renovation efforts which contributed to kicking it all into high gear, not to mention the presence of art held valuable by other people. Late hours also bring spirits into contact with the living. Most regular businesses close for the evening at some point.
Quiet periods can last for years. In our story of The Willard Library, IN, the Lady in Gray did not make her first appearance to the living until the 1930s, long after her death. She was quiet for a number of decades after that first sighting, before decidng to be active again.
A silent place doesn’t mean that entities have moved on. Time will tell.
LOCATION
1610 North Wells
Chicago, IL 60614
The Steak Joynt building can be found on North Wells Street, near the corner of West North Street — a main drag which runs east and west.
SOURCES INCLUDE
- prairieghosts.com
- ghostresearch.org
- adobogrill.com
- CHICAGO HAUNTS
GHOSTLORE OF THE WINDY CITY
by Ursula Bielski
Lake Claremont Press -1998 - HAUNTED PLACES
THE NATIONAL DIRECTORY
by Dennis William Hauck
Penguin Books
Our Haunted Paranormal Stories are Written by Julie Carr
Our Photos are copyrighted by Tom Carr
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