| Spooky Restaurant Review
Old Red Mill Inn 8326 Main St., Williamsville |
The Old Red Mill Inn is a restaurant with a lot of history. The farmhouse that houses the restaurant dates back to 1858, when it was a dairy farm with more than 100 acres. The restaurant did not open until 1962, when some renovations were made to increase the size of the large dining areas.
A caboose was later purchased from the New York Central Railroad and two more dining cars from the Union Pacific Railroad were added in 1972 and 1975.
Today, a restaurant with a well-decorated interior with a farmhouse theme stands today as the Old Red Mill Inn, located at 8326 Main St. in Williamsville.
A tremendous amount of wood is visible upon entering the restaurant. The furniture, the walls, and the floor create a rustic atmosphere. The walls are covered with antique farm equipment; the dim lights and "Franklin" fireplace give a soothing feeling.
The food, though given in large tasty servings, was a bit expensive and the type of food served might not appeal to the pizza eating, Chinese-food-ordering college student.
The entrees start at $12, and include a soup or salad. Appetizers include selections such as seafood bisque ($3.75), chorizo stuffed mushrooms ($7.50) and loaded potato skins ($8.75).
Entrees served at the Old Red Mill Inn include Wiener Schnitzel ($15.50), Chicken Chardonnay ($15.50) and Yankee Pot Roast ($12.50).
The Yankee Pot Roast was especially delicious and worth every penny. The accompanying salad was crisp and fresh and the portions were large. The entree was served promptly with mashed potatoes, lots of gravy, stuffing and steamed vegetables.
The service cannot be deemed anything less than excellent. Everyone was polite and wore a smile, giving the restaurant a friendly atmosphere. The waiter could not do enough to make sure I was comfortable and content.
What makes this restaurant so interesting and well known, however, is not the good food, the prices, or great service - it's the fact that the Old Red Mill Inn is haunted.
"There was only one room that really bothered me here and I didn't like being in there late at night when closing. It just gave me a bad sense," said Chris Perezo, who has been a bartender at the Inn for two years. "I personally have never heard or seen anything."
Despite the lack of supernatural experience from one employee, there have been some very strange stories from others about what they claim to have seen and heard. The restaurant owner even asked a mediator to come into the restaurant and try and figure out if there really are ghosts in the Old Red Mill Inn.
According to Perezo, there are a number of ghosts in the Inn, including that of an old man, an old woman and a conductor.
Upon entrance into one of the old dining rooms, there is a beautifully laid out dining car. The mediator brought into the Inn to detect spirits claimed that there was a conductor standing in the dining car, waving and smiling at the people passing by.
The upstairs portion of the restaurant was also the scene of some spooky occurrences.
According to Perezo's story, a waitress was downstairs when she heard noises and shuffling upstairs. Thinking it was merely the manager moving things around, she paid no attention to the noise. When she later found out that the manager had already left for the day, she went upstairs only to find that the lights were off and one chair from each table was moved into a circle.
In the restaurant's smaller room, paintings seem to tilt without human intervention and items on the wall suddenly fall without breaking or disturbing anything else. It was in this room that the mediator saw the old man. He claimed that the old man had communicated that he meant no harm, but simply hated the loud noise from the restaurant.
A waiter at the Old Red Mill Inn was in the bathroom late at night washing his hands when he noticed a man in the mirror. The waiter began to apologize to the man for intruding accidentally, but when the waiter turned around, he found no one there, according to Perezo's story.
Another of the many ghost stories occurred in the kitchen, where the cooks came in early to set up for a party and for no reason, an unplugged meat slicer turned on.
The ghosts are shy around guests, as there have not been reports of customers having ever seen or heard anything.
The Old Red Mill Inn serves great food with a ghostly surprise, making it a perfectly spooky Halloween outing.
