SAN ANTONIO – Whether it’s in the middle of a busy workday or after hours, some employees at Guillermo’s say they never feel alone inside the popular restaurant, located north of downtown.
They’re convinced there is at least one ghost among them who has the run of the restaurant overnight.
“I normally assume it's a cook walking up behind me,” said Sylvia Perales, a product manager. “I'll feel the footsteps and I'll naturally scoot over so they can walk on by, and it turns out that there's nothing there.”
Perales said it’s not unusual to hear pots and pans crashing in the kitchen when no one is there to knock them down.
She recalled one time when a diner momentarily looked away from her salad, then found her tomato somehow had moved and landed on top of the book she was reading.
Perales believes they’re being haunted by a ghost with a sense of humor.
“No one has ever felt afraid,” Perales said. “Actually people comment all the time on how warm it feels.”
Precious Hernandez, another employee, also has witnessed some strange, goose bump-inducing occurrences.
“Things being moved. Things being knocked over,” Hernandez said. “Sometimes I think it’s all in my head.”
One recent night, however, it appeared as though this was more than just her wild thoughts.
While the two employees were conducting a tour of the restaurant for KSAT 12, there were suddenly three loud knocks on a door.
Perales immediately opened that door and found no one there.
“That’s crazy!” she said, about the experience.
The stories told by these employees, though, aren’t exactly new.
The restaurant has a write-up on the phenomenon, known as “Guillermo’s Ghost,” on its website.
The business consists of several old homes that have been strung together by decks and patios.
Perales believes whomever is haunting them has some attachment to that property.
“You know, these old houses, they got souls of their own. They got memories,” she said.
Junior Esquivel, a self-proclaimed ghost hunter, agrees.
He heads up a group called “San Antonio Dead Seekers.”
Together with a team of six other group members, he recently conducted a ghost hunt inside the business.
“Whatever's there is attached to that house,” he said.
Esquivel said his group made contact with two different ghosts, recording what he says is video and voice evidence of their presence on several different devices.
You can see what they found in part 2 of this story next Thursday, Halloween.