My Return to Bennett’s!

 

          I was so excited to be invited back to Bennett’s Publical Family Sports Grill in Miamisburg, Ohio, after Gov. DeWine lifted the statewide lockdown in response to COVID-19. (To read about my first adventure at Bennett’s click here:  http://myhauntedtravelblog.blogspot.com/2020/05/bennettspublical-family-sports-grill-i.html) I found out the restaurant was finally open – not only for pizza but so I could investigate the second floor, which the manager was opening up just for me! I couldn’t wait!

          I walked through the doors and was sweetly greeted by the manager and bartender, who were soon leading me upstairs to the second floor. As I stepped up the last stair reaching the second floor banquet area, I felt two spirits down the hall toward the back of the building.

          The first spirit I could feel was on the right. It was the male I had originally felt the very first time I entered this building years ago while having dinner downstairs with my daughter. This spirit was a nice man who unfortunately had died tragically in a fire. The manager told me that where I stood was the very spot where, years before, an older women, who was a guest at one of the banquet gatherings being held on the second floor, refused to go any further into the room or even sit with other guests at the banquet table. She had felt the male spirit and informed the staff she didn’t wish to be closer. I was impressed because I was standing in the same spot and I also sensed him. That moment was really awesome!

          Then there was the second spirit directly across the hall from the large banquet room behind a locked door. To me, this felt like a menacing, negative entity that had energy about it that you could feel throughout the hall.

          How odd that I hadn’t sensed this spirit during my last few visits to Bennett’s! As a sensitive, I normally can feel spirits in a building after I’ve been in it for a few minutes. “Hmmm, that is strange. Perhaps it was hiding from me,” I thought. I collected my things and walked down the hallway into the larger banquet room where I felt the male who died in the fire resided.

          I set up my equipment and began my EMF sweep. As I did, the manager and bartender of the restaurant began telling me about their experiences in the room. Then suddenly we heard a large creaking sound from the chandelier located above my head near the fireplace. I asked the two staff members behind me if they had heard it too and they confirmed they had.

          Finding nothing during my EMF sweep, I began asking questions aloud to the man. Then I heard, “you already know the answers.” Determining that he was not in the mood to talk, we all walked across the hall to the room with the locked door. Before unlocking and opening the door, the manager and bartender warned me about the negatives that came with entering this locked apartment.

The manager pushed open the door and I was swiftly hit with a blast of raw emotion. “Wow!” I said aloud to the two staff members as I took a deep breath and cautiously stepped into little apartment. Inside, it felt very oppressive and still – like someone was watching us and wanted to harm us but was deliberating how.

          As I walked around the small space, I could tell the manager and bartender were definitely getting emotional being inside the apartment. Obviously, this little place had impacted them greatly. I asked them to tell me about what happened here that was getting them so upset. Their stories about several experiences while within the space poured out of them with emotion and tears.

          The bartender first spoke up telling me that she had asthma and was fine anywhere else in the building except in this apartment. She said each time she entered the room, her asthma was triggered and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. “It’s as if someone is choking me!” Then I suddenly remembered she began coughing once we got on the second floor, especially as we got closer to the locked apartment. While telling me her story, she began coughing very hard and had shortness of breath. In fact, she started to cough so hard that we thought she might pass out. Excusing herself from the room, she went into the hallway and, within twenty minutes, began to catch her breath and breathe normally again. Even her emotions, which were really showing in the small space, dissipated as soon as she hit the hallway. She reported that this always happened while in that room and she felt sad and depressed when inside. “It’s like someone is trying to suck the life from you.”

          Knowing the bartender was okay, the manger and I went back into the small apartment and she began telling me why she feared the space. The female manager had two boys who occasionally worked at the restaurant and used to come up to the empty apartment to rest on a couch after a long night, in between shifts, or during breaks. The manager explained to me that her sons often experienced wild things and acted differently or unpleasantly after resting in the space. So much so, that she begged them to never rest in the little apartment again. She also removed all the furniture so the boys could no longer sleep between shifts or while on breaks.

          Later on, I interviewed the manager’s younger son, Ben, about his experiences in the apartment. This is what he told me. While sleeping, he said, he dreamt about the ceiling fan in the room going extremely fast and the light was on. The fan quickly began to form into a circle shape ball of light that spun, and then he felt someone holding him down with so much force that he couldn’t move or breathe. He said he told himself to wake up and tried to move but couldn’t. That’s when he heard a male voice scream at him. He said he couldn’t make out what it said but he woke up fast and ran from the room. When Ben returned to his shift, the bartender noticed he was very moody and not acting like his normal self. He reported to me that he felt very negative and felt like all his energy was gone – like someone had just taken the life out of him. He said he will never go into the apartment again.

          I asked Ben if the ceiling fan was turned on when he first entered the room and he said no, it wasn’t. He also reported that his father, who used to live there and had stayed the night a few more times there since, had often told him about hearing the same screams.

          His mother also told me that on separate occasions, both boys have gotten ill three days after resting upstairs in the apartment and it’s happened more than once to each son. She was really emotional when explaining their illness and their experiences, as any mother would be, but she also told me that everyone who has lived in the apartment since the apartment was added onto the building has ended up with something tragic happening, such as a bad accident or drug addiction. And all the married couples living there were divorced shortly after leaving the space.

          While I was alone in the apartment, I was taking pictures. The two employees were in the hallway waiting for me when I saw a dark shadow shot from the doorway to the other side of the room. I shouted out to the manager in the hallway, “Hey did you two move in the hall or turn on a light?” making sure it wasn’t one of their shadows that I saw. The manager stepped inside and told me they hadn’t moved or turned on another light. That they were talking while waiting for me.

          However, later, when reviewing my evidence, I found a very tall shadow figure standing in front of the bare wall where I had seen the shadow dart. But the most fascinating thing about this picture is the figure looked like it was about seven feet tall. It seemed like it was a male with its arms at its side and I could see a translucent, self-eliminating orb floating above its head and between its legs. The shadow figure also had facets of light coming from its right side, under its arm and its feet. But this picture wasn’t the only thing I got! After taking my photos and stepping out of the room, I heard a voice say, “I likeee my kiddies.” I felt this creepy voice was referring to the manager’s two sons. Then I heard a slight chuckle which made all the hairs on my neck stand up.

I’m sure you can understand that after hearing that we all left the second floor in a hurry and went downstairs for some pizza! I couldn’t leave without having a slice or two as well as their famously delicious pretzel bits with cheddar-dipping sauce!

          I also couldn’t resist stepping into the downstairs bathroom to say “Hi” to my fellow-ghost friend who liked to hang out there. I believe it must be an older female entity. When I said this to manager, she told me that the wall in the bathroom was shared with the bar next-door, Good Time Charley’s. She said a long time ago there was a female owner of the bar who was rumored to leave her two children unattended often. A fire broke out in the bar and the two children died in the fire. So it makes sense that this could be the mother and past owner of the bar still residing near her bar, hiding in the bathroom, racked with guilt.

          While at Bennett’s, I also had the special privilege to tour their basement where it is rumored it housed a speakeasy during prohibition times. The only thing I noticed was a negative feeling coming from a corner in the basement. The manager said everyone else said the same thing too about that spot in the basement.

          So again, would I recommend a visit to Bennett’s Publical Family Sports Grill? HECK YEAH!!! In fact, if you have a large group or party and need to rent space for your gathering, guess what? THERE IS NO RENTAL FEE AT BENNETT’S but you may get an invisible guest or two at your gathering! But the more the merrier, right!

       

©Rosella C. Rowe

Disclaimer:

This article was written from the author’s personal experience and perspective only. The article itself and all in it, are not an endorsement. The views from this article are the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of the: people, business, or place, and/or building of subject.