Overview
Moss Beach is a relatively small coastal area on the Pacific Ocean that is twenty-five miles due south of San Francisco. Lonely and windswept from the gusty ocean waves, this small town with a population of only three thousand people casually displays its oceanic charms with little fanfare. Things at Moss Beach however were once not so quiet, and in fact during the late 1920s Prohibition Era, the beach reeled in an influx of bootleggers, gangsters, and high-end strumpets. Nearly one hundred years later, the most exciting place then and still, is the fantastically haunted Moss Beach Distillery.
Is the Moss Beach Distillery Haunted?
Capitalizing on the 1920s bootlegging, a businessman named Frank Torres opened up a speakeasy restaurant called Frank’s Place. Basking in the nearby oceanic cliffs, Frank’s Place was becoming a major draw for the California elite and the rum-running bootleggers. Eventually, when Prohibition was over, Torres remained on with the newly renamed Moss Beach Distillery and ensure it became one of the most successful restaurants around. However, it wasn’t before long that employees and guests began to take particular notice of one ghostly specter that has affectionately been called The Lady In Blue.
The Lady in Blue
The origin of the Lady In Blue began during the Prohibition Era when a married woman began to frequent Frank’s Place. Dressed always in a flowing blue dress, she eventually fell in love with the establishment’s piano player. One night they arranged for a romantic tryst on the beach when she was found out by her husband. A knife was drawn and a brawl broke out between the men, causing the Lady in Blue to be fatally stabbed trying to break up the argument. Decades later, the Lady In Blue’s spirit is said to haunt the Moss Beach Distillery.
Employees and some dinner guests have exclaimed that one of the telltale signs of her presence is that an immediate rush of fragrant cold air blows upon them. Some employees have even believed to have heard a ghostly voice call out their own name when they’re alone. Former owner Patricia Andrews confessed that the Lady In Blue was more of a mischievous, and fun-loving spirit instead of a malicious entity. Andrews confessed to being locked out of her manager’s office at the restaurant on more than one occasion by the spirit. Another time she was closing up by herself alone at night in her office totaling receipts and she saw the restaurant’s business checkbook levitate completely off her desk right in front of her! She later said that it floated in a slow circle around the room completely by the Lady In Blue. Amused, Andrews asked the spirit to kindly put it back on the desk, and that’s exactly what she did.
Another former owner of the Moss Beach Distillery named John Barbour, had purchased the restaurant from Patricia Andrews in the early 1990s. A self-proclaimed skeptic of anything concerning the Lady In Blue, let alone paranormal activity, Barbour was staunchly incredulous at anyone claiming there was a ghost in his new restaurant. That was until Barbour himself actually had an experience that he couldn’t explain in the form of actual object levitations. This extended down to another employee who was a janitor there at the restaurant.
The Ghost of Mary Anne Morley
Late one evening the Lady In Blue actually manifested in front of her, clothed in her typical blue chiffon period dress, and tried to verbalize what many believe was her name. Shaken by the event and other apparitions that were made to this particular employee, famed psychic Sylvia Browne was brought in. Sylvia held seances at the restaurant and came up with a name that the spirit revealed to her, Mary Anne Morley. In another random turn of paranormal events, Browne also revealed that there were three other spirits haunting the establishment as well.
On the whole, Browne felt that the Lady In Blue as well as all the other spirits there were genial in nature, if not loving. During her last seance, Browne claimed that the spirit told her that the employees must be vigilant because a fire was going to break out there at the restaurant. Within ten days of the seance, a raging fire broke out in the kitchen area which was thankfully contained. The Lady In Blue’s caring doesn’t seem to stop there at the restaurant. Presumably, on the beach area in which she was killed, some children were playing amongst the dunes in what they thought was shallow water. Moments later the children ran screaming to their parents up at the restaurant claiming that a lady in a long blue dress came to them and warned them of the sudden high tides that were to strike before completely disappearing.
Today the Moss Beach Distillery is a wildly successful restaurant destination in the Moss Beach area. The current owners are very respectful of the Lady In Blue and her supernatural history with the restaurant.
