B (11:04)

I'm Chuck. I'm one of the founders of Moonshine. We started moonshine back in 2003. It's interesting. It was an old building that we thought was really cool, but I wasn't quite ready for it. I think I may have said no, like, three times for the opportunity. And we finally. I finally said yes. And together with my partner Larry Perdido, a business partner, we decided to do Moonshine. And what's interesting is, you know, the moonshine story isn't something that we always had. It was something that spoke to us. This building from the 1800s said to us, hey, this is a place where people gather. This is a place that needs to feel comfortable and familiar. This is a place that needs to feel genuine and authentic. And as we decided to concept a restaurant, we were leaning towards something that had Southern roots and something that was Southern comfort. And so we started building around that idea of. Of it being moonshine. A funny side note, there was an old director of the convention center. He said to me, when we're doing the R and D and get ready to take the building over, he said, I'll never take anyone to a place called Moonshine. And, you know, here we are 22 later, and so, so thankful for the blessings and for the people that have just has shared in their celebrations with us. So thankful for that. Also, you know, when I think about moonshine, we had no idea what to expect. We just thought it was an old building. And we're going to tell this story of people gathering. You know, we did know that moonshine's original name was the Waterloo compound. And, you know, Waterloo was Austin's first name. So we. We did know this was a place where people would come to trade. And I'm sure from others, you'll hear stories about, you know, our Sunday house and how people would come in, you know, on horse and buggy for the weekend to trade goods, stay the night at the Waterloo compound, go to church on Sunday, and after staying in the Sunday house, and then they would head back to their ranches or their farms. And so we did know, and we do know that moonshine has been a place of gathering for a very long time. And we're so happy to continue that tradition of gathering to this day. And you know, when I think about, you know, experiences at Moonshine, I don't think mine go as deep as others. But I will tell you that I guess there is a connection to being slightly in tune with these things around you. And I would say it probably starts back for me when I first moved out on my own. I just felt like, you know, living in a small apartment all by myself, that in the middle of the night I'd wake up and it would just scare me so much to see something in the doorway, kind of tall and just lingering. And I would just, I was like, what is that? And then I fully wake up. And then, then it was gone. And this would go on for years. And this is in Austin when one time and moonshine is open and, and you know, it happens again, I wake up in bed, this is a little apartment on South Congress. And I wake up and for some reason this, that this presence begins to have a little bit of clarity. And, you know, and I started focusing in. And I was like, grandma, is that you? And I believe it was her. There was no communication back and forth. And I said, oh, grandma. I said, I said, you've been checking on me all this time and even scaring me. I said, I want you to know that I'm good, that everything's okay and you don't have to check on me anymore. And after that night, you know, she never visited again. And so that was probably my first personal experience of a visit, if you would. So that aside and kind of segueing to moonshine, I can remember we were in the restaurant, we're all working together with a great, you know, opening team to tell this story, to unfold this experience of, you know, what moonshine is going to be. And we had heard that years past, if we talk about the original use of the building, we had known that the corner was an old mercantile. And when you walked in the mercantile, we had known that there was a kind of like a glass counter. It was, and it had candy in it. And so I had this thought, I was like, wow, you know, what if we do some kind of cherry infused whiskey with a name like Moonshine, Wouldn't that be kind of fun? And so our bartender at the time, our opening bartender, great guy, had worked with us in the past. So I, so I say to Jim, I said, jim, let's let's try it. Let's put, let's get some, let's get a big box of cherries, let's put it in a huge glass jar and let's marinate some bourbon, some whiskey in that. And so he got it all together. You know, it's going into the night and the night's ending and he's behind the bar, he's working on things on the other side of the bar, visiting with him and helping him. And we're just talking and I can't even get the words out because I look behind him where this glass jar was sitting with the marinating cherries and bourbon and I'm like, I can't even get his name out. And the jar slides off the counter, falls to the floor and shatters. And I don't know why I thought this, but I said to Jim, I said, well, I guess we're not going to do any cherry juice whiskey. And that was my very, you know, first encounter of something that I didn't quite understand. And we call it paranormal or we could call it a visit. And. But I was like, okay, we got something going on here. Fast forward just a little bit. Another experience. You know, I was, I had a gentleman coming to see me. He worked for a radio station back in the time. These are early years, it's like the early 2000s. So he comes in to visit and his eyes get as wide as saucers and he goes, whoa. I go, what is it? He says, I don't know, but the hair is standing up on the back of my neck and I got goosebumps all over. I said, oh, well, you know, I think, you know, you're, you're sensing this little girl that is visits Moonshine. As we hear about these stories and about, you know, you know, various experiences at Moonshine, I was like, oh yeah, I wasn't even surprised. He was definitely. He described himself as an intuitive. He, he said that he was very sensitive to these things and, and he felt it like right away, you know, hit him, hit him hard. Another one that I recall, there's a delivery driver, one of our liquor distributors, I guess he's bringing in an order. And we have this old little carriage house that we now call the Patio Bar. But it was originally kind of a three stall carriage where they would keep their horses and buggies in it. And today it's still, you know, the Patio Bar at Moonshine. And as my understanding that he comes to have his invoice signed and Larry is working that day, business partner and he is White as a ghost. And he's just stuttering and he's telling. He's telling Larry, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. And he goes on to tell Larry that these glasses started sliding off and flying off the hanging glass rack. They're like martini glasses and wine glasses. And he actually ended up quitting his job because he did not want to deliver to Moonshine anymore. You know, those are direct experiences that I've been familiar with. And to this day, I know just by various people who, you know, who come through Moonshine just telling us what they feel, what they expect experience, you know, very, very, very common ones are people sitting at a certain table. You feel like someone taps them on the shoulder and they try and look and, you know, there's nobody there. And so it's true that people are coming through Moonshine and they're experiencing, you know, various things. And, and I would say too, I know we're talking earlier, you know, you know, some people call them hauntings. And I would tell you that at Moonshine, it's only felt like visits. We've always felt like there was this family presence from the past there. And I think over time, what has happened is we have known that we have had a show and have proven ourselves as people today gathering at Moonshine, that we're curators of what was started there so long ago. And we're happy to carry that torch, to shine it bright and be a place that we can still host folks to come visit with us. And today we're still doing it 22 years later. So thankful. You know, great blessings in that, you know, earlier we were talking about these visits and I just wanted to let you know how I related to these visits as we were given little, little nudges along the way to say, hey, we're happy to have you here, but to be a good curator, this is kind of what we, we would love for you all to, to. To navigate. Right. And, and so to this day, so many great people that work with us at Moonshine and they know that there's this deeper responsibility to curate a place of gathering.

A (20:56)

Now we'll move from my phone interview with co owner Chuck to the in person conversations I recorded during my first visit to Moonshine. These took place in the basement speakeasy kinfolk just below the main restaurant. You'll hear some background noise from the staff and guests above, but that's the life of the building around us. Let's continue our interviews with co owner Larry.

C (21:17)

Hi, my name is Larry I am a partner at Moonshine Patio Barn Grill. My partner and I, Chuck, we opened this place back in 2003. And this is an opportunity for me to come back from Houston to open this restaurant. And it was, you know, obviously it's a historic building, and we had this great real estate opportunity to come and redevelop this space. Originally, it was a fine dining restaurant named Amelia's that didn't quite make it through the 98 tech bubble. And so the economy kind of went south. You know, the restaurant folded, and we had the opportunity to pick it up. Chuck and I, we walk into this space with another partner, former partner, and we said, asked ourselves, what should we do here? It's sometimes difficult to create a concept and put it into a beautiful piece of property like this. We actually looked at the old historic building and sort of asked it, what do you want us to do here? And so we said, you know, southern food makes sense. Something that's more approachable, something that will gather people around, bring them from all over, and, you know, have that sort of hospitality and food that sort of appeals to everybody. And so we created this watering hole named Moonshine Grill 20 something years ago. And, you know, that was sort of the beginning of our story story here. Chuck and I have always looked at this as a watering hole. And what's crazy is that we've learned over time that this just wasn't a watering hole for us in this plane, that this is a watering hole for spirits as well. And so we've had, oh, I don't know, countless spirits that have kind of come and gone. We do have, what I believe, two resident spirits on property here. They're both female. One's young and a little mischievous, and the other is an older woman. And so we see them and feel them quite a bit here. In addition to other spirits, I want to say the young ones is the mischievous one. I think that's the one that kind of goes around and taps people on their shoulder, you know, is the more playful one. I have an older grown daughter now, but when she was about four or five years old, I would bring her into work here. She's a little sensitive to spirits, I would say. And she would say, dad, I want to go to work with you. I want to visit and play with my friend. I'm like, oh, that's great. I need to look for these pictures. But she's creative, she's an artist, and she used to draw pictures with this spirit. And I probably have some at home in, like, one of her art books when she was young, but she draw pictures with her holding hands. That's one. So that's kind of my first, you know, sort of my first introduction to the. The young one. I don't know if she is. She was the one responsible for. We have a famous table. We number all of our tables in house so our servers can run food and bring drinks to them. But we have this famous table that's no longer present, but the number is 34. So infamous table 34. There's always been instances where our guests. It was a two top two person table where the guests would often find themselves being tapped on their shoulders. And it happened so many times. I mean, I probably would say hundreds of times. I want to attribute that to maybe the young one. But even before this infamous table was there. I want to take us back to 2003, when Chuck and I first came into this space space. And we had two friends who were construction guys. If you come into the space, you'll see an upstairs bar or a bar on the main level here. And that used to be enclosed. And what we did was take the walls down and sort of pretty it up. But in that remodeling phase, before we even opened the door, there was this construction guy named John. There's another fellow, John. Chuck and I, you know, we're wrapping up the end of the day, we're having beers. John would have his generator, a plug in generator in the front of the building. I remember one time, we were all sitting there and just winding down, and all of a sudden this generator turns on. Now, mind you, it wasn't plugged in. And all four of us are looking at each other like, what the hell is this? This? And guess where that thing was located was that table 34 was that exact same location. So that was our first introduction to the spirit. We weren't even open yet. We were in the remodeling phase. And here comes table number 34 showing itself. Or at least the spirit was in that exact same space. The young one, I've always felt her as a feminine person presence. The drawings, I believe, were done with. With dresses on. And so I've always thought, you know, the entity is a. Is a young female. I have personally seen the older spirit, the proverbial white flowing gown, sort of like, sort of drifting through. Through space. I've seen that on, on many occasions, literally in of the stairwell, going outside where the bathroom areas are located. I've always felt them in that space. Very, very localized. There's been many incidences of. And I've seen these. And actually, I believe we have physical video of some of these things happening. I have witnessed stacks of plates in the kitchen flying early in the morning. I have seen glassware hanging from the bar racks fly off the shelves. Visually, personally seen that happen. I have been a witness to one of our vendors who was in the Carriage House Bar. That's the outside bar to us. I walk in and he is white as a ghost. I said, what's wrong? And he goes, the glasses just flew at me. And I said, oh, it's just one of our ghosts. Don't worry about it. She's a nice ghost. And he didn't even bother picking up his tools or anything. He just left the building in a hurry. And I thought to myself, oh, that's great. You know, that's another one. I mean, there's so many of these things. Gosh, multiple times in the kitchen with the plate ware flying, you know, it became almost expensive. I remember having a talk with them about, hey, you can't do this. It's, you know, they're. They're $15 each a plate. You know, your costing is 2, $300 every time you're doing this. And, you know, I think as. As long as you acknowledge them, you know, they'll listen. But I think for whatever reason, they just. I don't think they liked it initially when we were first here because we were disturbing their space. And then over time, I think they just absolutely love it now, you know, because we're all in here together. And I can tell you this. There are people that come in that the spirits don't like, and they run them off, Whether they're staff, whether it's customers, they latch onto some people and move them out. We've had a couple staff members, a couple of our bartenders, two of them, I believe, in the last three years that have had incidences with the spirits down here, falling downstairs, cutting themselves, having to call ambulances. I think there's a couple of the bartenders can speak to that later. There's a couple stories about the well and the young girl maybe being a victim to that. Some say that she was a victim of the flood. I'm not really sure. But, you know, there is that area that is outside. There's a very large pecan tree, and behind it is a well. I never really get any sensitivity to that particular area. I'm aware of it, but we've never really had anything in the back of the kitchen where that butts up against that back Side of the kitchen that really hasn't affected us. I think the areas to me that are really strong, kind of by the front door. The stairwell, definitely. And down the stairwell and down in the basement, I think up here in the front of the room and the stairwell. Now, I've had other things happen that I do not believe are these two spirits. There was a time recently, in the last probably six months, probably the darkest force I've ever felt. Here I was in the men's restroom taking care of some business. Beside me is a stall, and I thought that there was a person in the stall. I'm continuing my business and this person comes out. I turn over, look over my shoulder to glance at the person. There's no person. But what I did see is a black shadow. The black is the black shadow. I get goosebumps talking about this one. And I was so spooked. And I'm very rarely ever spooked with spirits, but almost evil spirit. Those are very, very, very quick. I go outside and I see our manager out there and I said, I just experienced something really wild and very dark. And that was. That was just a few months ago. But darkness, it was just a fleeing spirit. A passerby. Underneath Moonshine grill, we had a beautiful wine cellar. For years it was being used for a lot of things outside of storing wine. You know, we had wine dinners and, you know, private dinners where people got engaged and what have you. And then Covid happened and we had a faucet leak down here, plumbing leak. We had some rotting wood that was on the floor. And so with the downtime with COVID we decided to. Decided to renovate the basement or the cellar here. Turned out beautifully. What happened was all that beautiful mahogany that was used to construct the wine shelving, they were all removed. And what was exposed here in Ken folk was this old historic hand chiseled limestone walls that are three feet thick down here. So beautiful place to sort of keep temperatures very climatically even. Even keeled. And so we have these beautiful limestone walls and we adorn them with a lot of different spirit bottles. Got a beautiful collection of whiskey, bourbon, rye, tequila, rum, you name it, cognac, you name it, we have it all down here. And. And we basically changed the space from just wine storage to a beautiful little cocktail bar called kinfolk. And now we do craft cocktails with a gorgeous spirit library here. I know that it's kind of calmed down over time, and I think it's when we decided to acknowledge the spirit. And so we have a little thing we do every show shift is we basically give her a drink. I don't want to say her, but give the spirit a drink just to honor and acknowledge them. Over time it's kind of died down. I would have to ask the current staff back there how often they've noticed it.

A (33:51)

Chuck and Larry clearly share a deep love for this property and for the vision that became Moonshine. But what's rare is having two owners so open to the idea that they might not be the only ones occupying the space. When we come back from this short break, we'll hear directly from the staff, the people whose daily experiences have continued to shape the understanding of the supernatural residents they believe they're sharing the space with. Stay tuned. Hey night owls, I'd like to tell you about my newest sponsor, Oneskin. Oneskin has developed a unique line of topical products for healthier skin. These topical products were developed by scientists with PhDs in skin regeneration, stem cell biology, immunology and bioinformatics to promote healthier aging of your body's skin. If you'd like to learn more about how you can get healthier younger looking skin, go to Oneskin Co and use Code night owl for 15% off. I recently received OneSkin's bestseller bundle which included the Face Topical Skill Supplement and the Eye Topical Supplement and put them to use immediately on my face, neck and around my eyes. I immediately noticed that Oneskin's products were not oily or greasy like some of the products I have tried in the past. Other eye creams I've tried before tended to cause my eyes to get irritated and itchy. Oneskin's Eye Topical supplement was easy to apply and did not cause any irritation whatsoever. It's still a little early in the game to give a definitive review on how well the products are working, but I have definitely noticed less puffiness around my eyes. One thing I can tell you for sure is that the science and research behind the One Skin products is definitely there. Five years of research testing over 900 new peptides led to the discovery of OS1, the only peptide scientifically proven to reverse the skin's biological age. Younger healthier skin starts at the cellular level and OS1 specifically targets damaged cells in the skin and switches off these cells that contribute to lines, wrinkles and saggy skin. Oneskin's products penetrate the skin's top layers, helping the younger, undamaged cells to multiply, reactivating collagen production and restoring your skin's health. We all go to great lengths to attain long term fitness through proper diet exercise, stress management and mental and emotional health. Why not make skin health a part of that overall approach for longevity and give one skin a try this season? Don't just moisturize. Support your skin at the cellular level with Oneskin. For a limited time, you can try OneSkin with 15% off using code NightOwl@OneSkin co. That's 15% off OneSkin co with Code Night Owl. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please help me and tell them the night owl sent you. Try oneskin today. October is the best, busiest time of year for this particular night owl. This week I'm having my huge Night Owl Spirit social event on a Halloween night. In addition to that, I have been invited to attend various spooky themed events all around Austin. My schedule is insane this time of year, but the one thing I stick to without any hesitation is my daily routine of starting with AG1 in the morning and now ending my day with AGZ. AGZ is the nightly drink that helps you wind down and rest rest up. Head to drink ag1.com Night Owl to get a free frother with your first purchase of AGZ AG1 is an essential part of my daily routine. No matter what else I've got going on the rest of the day, I'm assured knowing that I've provided my body with the necessary vitamins, minerals, nutrients, probiotics and prebiotics to keep me going the whole day long. And now with agz I can be just as assured that my nighttime health is covered too.

B (37:31)

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A (37:31)

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D (38:33)

My name is Jordan. I am the business director here at Moonshine Patio Bar and Grill. I've been here almost 17 years. This is a great environment to work in. I love being here. I love being a part of this family. And it has great history, which I'm super into pretty early on in my career. At Moonshine, the employees would always tell stories about the ghost. The ghost tours of Austin start here. And so that was just something everybody knew happened here at Moonshine. I love ghost stories. I always thought that was really interesting, But I had never experienced anything myself. Just heard all the stories that people told over the years about all the experiences they had or the guest had. I would say about a year, maybe or two into working here was when I had my first experience. I work in the upstairs office and I do accounting. And I worked with the event coordinator. Hannah was her name at the time. And we had a bunch of wine bottles, corked wine bottles, up on a high shelf that were just decor. They were just there. There wasn't any wine in them. So there wasn't anything that was effervescent, anything that would have caused this. And we were sitting one day and we were working, listening to music, doing what we do in the office. And out of nowhere, every single cork started shooting out of the wine bottles on the top shelf. We thought somebody was playing a joke on us. And then we're like, it must be the ghost. So that was my very first experience about a year into it. So then after that, a couple weeks later, I was sitting at my desk alone this time, and I have blinds behind my desk. And it started sounding like if somebody were running their hands up and down blinds, like over and over, so making that little tick tick noise the whole time. And I turn around, nothing was happening. And then I'd go back to work, and a little while later, it would happen again. And I turn around, I lifted the blinds, I checked. They're sealed windows. They're not open. It's not wind. And I was like, okay, it's happening again. I'm experiencing this again. So those were the two first big things that happened to me. I don't really recall anything really happening to me personally after that for a little while, or maybe I wasn't aware. But throughout the years after that, I did hear multiple stories which people will share. But there were a lot of stories told from delivery people, cleaning crews, construction crews, employees, definitely closing managers, always experienced A lot of things I did not experience personally, many more instances until the pandemic. So we had to close this location because all the restaurants and bars couldn't have any indoor. You know, everybody knows what happened during the pandemic, but this location specifically was always so busy. Being in downtown Austin and just being a hub of tourist activity, convention center activity, people celebrating that we had never been able to close it before and do any type of remodeling. So we took it as an opportunity with the six month closure to actually do things that we haven't been able to get around to doing because we were just so busy. And I think that maybe that's what, why I didn't notice things either for a couple years cuz we were so busy, I mean focused on the restaurant. We closed for six months and in that time frame we remodeled the upstairs floor and our basement wine cellar that was used for wine storage at the time was converted into a spirits library named Kinfolk. We think because of the closure and because of the remodeling that then once we all started coming back into the building to work, we, we started to see an increase in activity because I don't know, maybe they were having a good old time in here without anybody in here for six months. Specifically the construction crew working during that time had quite a few experiences. So when we came back at that time it was just myself and the event coordinator Devin, coming into the office to work. Things kept disappearing. If I was working on something, there was a piece of paper on my desk, I would get up to go fill my water, come back and it's gone. And I would accuse her of playing a trick on me or whatever, but this was happening to me and it was happening to her over and over and over again. And so. But then it would reappear like an hour later and I'd be like, I, I know that this piece of paper, like it was the craziest thing because I thought I was losing my mind. And then I would be working on the computer and I would be typing away and I would look up at the screen and it would be gibberish and it wouldn't be what I had been typing. And this happened for a while and I kind of didn't really say anything to anybody about the this because I started to convince myself I had a brain tumor at the time because it was happening so often because it'd be like what is happening? Like I would type a full on email, look up straight gibberish on the screen, or I'd be typing in, typing, move my hands. It's gibberish. But the gibberish kept going. So it'd just be random letters continuing to type the whole time. So I'd unplug the keyboard, turn it off, restart the computer. I took my computer to Best Buy multiple times to try to see if there was a virus or something wrong with it. Nothing's wrong with it. Then it started happening to Devin's computer. And so she was like, you don't have a brain tumor. Something else is going on here. And I was like, okay, okay, okay. So she and I both have children. We had been told one of the ghosts was a child. And I was like, this kind of reminds me of when my daughter is just going crazy on a keyboard because kids are very into tech. And so I was like, I'm going to try something. So I went and got a spare keyboard. And when it would start happening, I would take the spare keyboard, I would set it next to my desk, and I would say, this is your keyboard. You get to play with this one. And then it would stop every single time. And that was the only way I could get it to stop. So the keyboard activity still happens. Not as often. I've gotten a new computer, and it still happens. So I don't believe it was a computer that before. I think that Devin and I, you know, because we're used to kids and used to kids touching things and messing with things, just kind of react in a mom way where we're just like, okay, here you go. This is yours. And I have to do a little scolding, you know, like, no, no, no, no, this is yours. And the experiences that we have in the office, from the wine bottles to the blinds to the keyboard, very much seem like children in children experiences. And that Devin and I both believe that just because we both have children, an adult's probably not going to run their hands up and down blinds, right? But a child will. And a child won't stop when you ask them to, but an adult would. And so they're very. She and I both. I believe that childlike entity is very drawn to us because we're mothers. And so we get to experience a lot of that, which we think is very comforting. It. It doesn't scare us. We're glad that they have mothers around to comfort them or to be a part of their lives. We learned during the construction, after the pandemic, that Catherine, who we think is one of the main ghosts here, which would be the wife of the owner of the building, did not like it if we made changes to the building without asking permission or being careful about the changes that we made, which makes sense. This is her home. So quite a few injuries would happen during the construction phase of the restaurant. Multiple people had pretty significant injuries and would have to get rushed to the emergency room. Sometimes it happens simultaneously. Two people would get hurt. We had a little girl fall and hit her head on. There's a rock wall in front of the building surrounding the building. Hit it right on the corner. At the same time, a bartender who was working in the barn getting it right, ready to open for business, like, getting a huge gash in their hands. So sometimes it's. I was being pulled in multiple directions, and they'd be like, oh, there's somebody working downstairs on the construction. And we forgot to ask for permission today. So we got into a habit of being like, is it okay if we work on the building? We love this building. Thank you for letting us be in the space. And it started to eliminate those injuries happening as often. So we believe that there are at least 4, 5 spirits in the building. The first one that I was told existed or that I heard the most stories about was a child in the building. That was something that I heard when I first started to work here. Everybody told a story about a little girl that fell down a well. Not sure if that's a true story, but that was what. The story that would be told with the staff members here, and they would tell guests. Guests like to hear that story. We do feel that there is a child in the building. That was the first one that I heard about. And then the second one, after I worked here for a couple years that I heard about was the guy who sits at the bar drinking, or the drunk, as we call him. The guy at the bar is an old cowboy who sits at seat one in B1, which is bar one, which is upstairs in the main dining space. And seat one would be the one closest to the kitchen. Right when you walk into the building. We heard about him mainly not through employees here at Moonshine, but through delivery people, cleaning crews, and construction crews. We had multiple people tell us they were never coming back into this building because of the guy who sits at the bar and be like, what are you talking about? And then one person really broke it down for us that they would be cleaning the kitchen, and they would look through the windows of the kitchen, and they could see the guy sitting at the bar. So that guy tends to be here late, late at night. So a lot of the people that Work here don't actually have experiences with him. This would be more overnight deliveries, overnight construction, overnight cleaning crews that have experience with him. So we have the child, we have the drunk at the bar, the manager, the closing managers, myself, people have been here up to 12 o' clock in the morning. But the time frame that really nobody's in the building would be between like 2 and 5. Unless it would be an overnight cleaning crew or a delivery. So even our in house cleaning crew does not come into the building till 6 and they don't seem to have experienced it. Like Whoever's here between 3 and 4 in the morning, he may have been just a traveler that just in, you know, the years that we heard about him was here and then now he's gone probably 2016 to 2018, we probably saw a lot of that. So I may have been a traveler that moved on. But that's just my opinion. We've done some construction overnight since, since then and haven't heard anything. So another experience that people have is with somebody in the patio bar, the Carriage House bar. So that will be the bar area off of Red river in, in the patio area. Apparently people don't like that ghost. That person gives them bad vibes. They feel anger, they feel that they need to get out when they're experiencing. And that's the area where we see wine glasses fly off of wine racks, bottles fall over, things like that. So I've never experienced that personally, but I've heard that from bartenders that have been up here late at night. From what I understand and what I've been told, the experience people have in there tends to be more of a feeling. They'll be cleaning up, putting things up, and then all of a sudden they feel threatening to them. It actually feels anger. They begin to feel, feel uneasy and they don't want to be in the space anymore. So most of those people then just kind of finish their stuff up and get out. It tends to be late at night when they're closing the bar down. If you're a bartender in that space at the end of the night, it's probably just you and a manager still in the building. And the manager would be up in the office area and you would be alone. From what I've heard is that they just kind of book it. They don't want to be in there anymore. That space just feels very, very much like a man and very much like he does not want people in the space when he is in there. People do attribute it to Adolf, who was Catherine's husband, and they were the owners of the building. Because from our research and what we've heard over the years, he was not a very nice fellow. He was a very angry man. He was very scary to people, allegedly. He was maybe a bit of a gangster. I think that that's why people tie those together. And I think that's just from the research the employees have done in here. Just try to figure out what's going on in this building. So we've covered kid, drunk at the bar, the mean guy. And then my favorite is who we believe is Catherine, and she was the wife of Adolph, and they were the owners of the Waterloo compound. And she's my personal favorite. This is her home. We see a lot of action from her. If we're not respectful of her, if we're respectful of her, or if you are respectful of her, she tends to be protective of the people who are respectful of her. The reason I know that is because apparently she really likes me, and I'm okay with that. I think she was a boss babe, and I'm kind of a boss babe, and I think that we get each other. And I know that because of people who have come in here who can have connections to these spirits, who have told me, I've been told multiple times by different people that Catherine likes me. Catherine likes you. She's around you. She likes you. And that makes me feel kind of good that she's okay with me being in her house, because I like being in this house. So we ask her permission before we make any changes to her home. And that is to prevent anybody getting injured and to give her the respect that she deserves, because this is her home. Every single night. We leave her a little shot of gin because we read that that was her favorite. To just tell her cheers and thank you so much for letting us be in the space and celebrate in this space all day. After the pandemic, there was an uptick of activity in the restaurant. We believe it's because it was closed for a long period of time. So there wasn't as much loud activity from patrons and employees in the restaurant. And so they had the ability to move through space without being interrupted as much. Which, when we reopened, we started to see a lot more activity. So we had some people who brought in a medium to the restaurant. So when you bring a medium into an experience like this to try and communicate with ghosts, it's very important that you don't give any information about the people who are going to be a part of the experience or Whatever is going on in the building. So nothing about me was told to the medium. And the medium was. Wasn't even brought into the building until we were ready to go. Just to keep it clean. We stayed up here late at night, and they set up toys to try to see if the child would move some things around. And they just kind of walked through space. They asked me to walk with them and ask questions of the ghost to see if we could get a reaction or get some answers for a lot of the activity that we were seeing. They asked me to specifically ask Catherine because we had told her that we thought that one of the ghosts in the building was Catherine. So we moved from the main dining space over to the stairwell above Kinfolk. And we stood there, and they said, ask our questions. And I was like, okay. So I said, hey, Catherine, how's it going? And then the medium said, upstairs. And we were like, what? They were like, oh, she wants us to go upstairs. So we decided to move upstairs to my office, where I experience a lot of activity. And we go into the office. One of the people who's working with the medium sits in the chair at my desk. I felt a little pressure. It was kind of a lot. I felt maybe to say, like, it felt like a little electrical in the air. Like, I didn't really. I wasn't comfortable going into my office. I felt. Felt like maybe they weren't enjoying the medium being in the space. I was a little unnerved. And so I did not go into the office. I stayed in the hall. But the person was sitting at my desk, and the medium was also in the office. And the medium just started saying my name over and over again, which she had not been told my name, so just kept saying, Jordan, Jordan, Jordan, over and over again, which was very, very. So then, by then, I was really unnerved. And then she just yelled very, very loudly, beat it. And myself and the other people that were with me screamed, because nobody would know this unless they worked in the office with me. Because if I go into my office and somebody is sitting in my chair, I say, beat it every time. There's no way the medium would have known that I said that. And so the people that were with me in the office knew that. And that person was sitting in my chair. And so they. They were like, you better get out of her chair, because Katherine doesn't like you in the chair. Get out of the chair. So we specifically were speaking to Catherine when we were doing all of the communication that evening. And I felt that all of the directions she was giving us with the movement to go upstairs. All of that had to do because she understood that we were speaking to her. It definitely you could feel tension a little bit in the restaurant. I didn't feel like it was taking directed at me. I felt like it was more the desire for people to leave and specifically the medium and the other people. I feel welcome in the building. Any experience that I have here, it seems like mischief with the child and it feels like respect and understanding with Catherine. If it is Katherine, I don't ever feel like it's a bad experience.

E (55:20)

So we've been told about the fifth grade.

D (55:23)

I haven't had an experience with a fifth. People who have worked over here. The years may have more of an answer to the fifth. I've been told that there are five. Multiple times we were told by the medium who came in that there were five. I've never experienced five. So everything that I've experienced has been maybe four or that I've direct stories about experiences is with four. I would love to know more more about them so that we may coexist in this space in a respectful way. I think that some people come on the ghost tours or come to Moonshine because they've heard of the ghost stories with a tourist mindset. And I think that we are, you know, cohabitating this space. And I think it's important for us to just understand their needs so that we can work in this space together.

A (56:18)

After hearing from Chuck, Larry, and Jordan, a pattern began to emerge. Consistent reports that all seem to trace back to what the staff believe are five distinct spirits said to haunt Moonshine. There's a playful, childlike presence a man often sensed near the main bar. Another, darker male energy tied to the patio carriage house bar. And of course, the dominant female spirit many believe to be Catherine. As for the fifth, that one still remains a mystery, mentioned only through some readings from various mediums brought in over the years. When we return from this short break, you'll hear directly from more staff members, including Sonya, whose own chilling encounters have kept her from sharing her story publicly until now. Stay tuned. It is now the fall season, one of my favorite times of year. The holiday season is approaching, especially my favorite one of all, holiday Halloween. With the fall season also comes shorter days, busier schedules, and hopefully cooler weather. That's why I love Factor Mills, always there to provide delicious, comforting and nutritious meals to help me stay on track. Thanks to Factor for sponsoring this episode of the Night Owl podcast. Head over to FactorMills.com NightOwl50OFF and use code NightOwl50OFF to get 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for one year year factor meals come in such a variety that there is something for each and every person's individual taste and nutrition needs. They have a wide selection of weekly meal options including seafood choices like salmon and shrimp at no extra cost. For the health conscious Factor offers meals in categories like Keto, Calorie, Smart, Vegan and even GLP friendly meals. Like to expand your boundaries and try Global Inspired Meals Factor has you covered with with Asian Inspired meals influenced by China, Thailand and more. This week I tried Factor's Truffle Butter Filet Mignon meal. It was so much more than your average steak and potatoes meal. The steak was marinated in roasted garlic oil, smoked black pepper, scallions and chives. It was served over a Yukon Gold potato and leek mash with cream cheese, sour cream and a dollop of truffle butter. Rosemary roasted baby carrots topped off this extraordinary dish and the taste was out of this world. More choices, better nutrition and delicious chef prepared meals are only a few of the reasons you need to try Factor Meals for yourself and start eating smarter and healthier. Feel the difference no matter your routine. Eat smart@factormeals.com NightOwl 50 off and use code NightOwl50OFF to get 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for one year. That's code Night Owl50OFF@Factor Meals.com for 50% off your first box plus FREE breakfast for one year. Get delicious ready to eat meals delivered with Factor offer only. Valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto renewing subscription purchase.

F (59:11)

My name is Devin. I started working here when I was 20 so I was a little baby. It was just a whole new experience for me. I had no idea what I was getting into. I've been here for 18 years now, so I grew up here basically. Chuck and Larry, the owners are amazing. They came to my wedding. They've allowed me to bring my kids in when I couldn't. I didn't have anybody else to watch them. My final baby, she's three years old and she actually spent her week two of since she was born until her first year of life here with me in the office. So I'm the event manager now starting started as a server. I was a server for a very long time and then moved into the bar and then shortly like during COVID After Covid I moved upstairs. Kind of been in every little position minus the kitchen. So My. My first story is in the Sunday House. It's the second oldest building in Austin, so I've been told. It's second to the French Legation building. It's my favorite spot. We use it for events all the time, regular seating. It's just small, really little cozy building. The Sunday house is like I said, I use it for events. But it's a German built little stout building. It's all original, like limestone walls. It has the original beams that it was built with. I want to say that it's cedar. It's just. It's super cool. So the ceilings are super low. And I used to joke about how ceilings are so low cuz I guess Germans were short back in the day. But that is not true at all. They're built that way to withstand like all the weather elements. It seats, you know, 26 max people. So it's very, it's very intimate. But it has been used throughout history for so many different things. Originally the owner, where I office from, that's where they lived. But in order to build the whole Waterloo compound, he had to build this little building first. And so he used it for storage, lived there while he was building the rest of his home. It was a dry goods store. The main lobby was. So after it was all finished, he would have friends and family come and stay. He would clear it out, used it for storage for his dry goods store. But they'd clear it out on Saturday night and then they'd have church in the Sunday house on Sunday morning. The friends and family would all do their shopping and then they'd go back to wherever they lived. But this was the city of Waterloo, so it's called the Waterloo Compound. But two people who work here, Sarah and Jordan, their mom's friend, also used to live there at one point. So in the 1960s it was like a hippie commune. It's just. It's seen so many different people. One of the stories they told me was really interesting is about how one of the friends was being abused. And so the ghost actually, or the spirit like protected her, which I think is really cool. So yeah, I never knew this coming into working here. I didn't know the history of moonshine, I didn't know the history of the building, nothing. And again, I didn't know that moonshine was haunted. So when I was a server, I was kind of proving myself again. I was very young when I started and I finally got my first solo Sunday house party. So I was working in there by myself. It was just probably a Small group. I don't even remember maybe 15 people. But it was at the end of the night. We used to stay open much later than we do now. So at the end of the event, I went in and I was just making sure that everything was clear. So as soon as I walked through the threshold, on my entire, like, if my body was split in half, my entire left side of the body had a huge, like, gust of wind, flew. My, like, flung my hair back, and I stopped and I looked around and I was like, all right, this. That was weird. The whole left side of my body also got goosebumps. And I just slowly walked backwards past the threshold, all the way down the hallway backwards. Cause I just was like, all right, I'm not dealing with this. And then went out the door. Our owner, one of our owners, Chuck, he was having a scotch in the bar, just by himself sitting in there. And I went. And I was like, hey. And he was so friendly. Cause again, I was like, still the new girl. So I went in and he was asking me, how's everything going? You know, how do you feel? And I said, chuck, something weird just happened to me. He goes, what? I'm like, I was closing up the Sunday house and, you know, I told him the story and this wind hit me and it was super cold, but only on one side of my body. And he goes, oh, Devin, yeah, we're haunted. You didn't know this? I said, no, Chuck, I had no idea. Like, but it was so odd. So nothing had happened in a really long time after that. My second experience is actually in the room that we're in. So this is kinfolk now, but it was built as a wine cellar. It was originally built as a soldier bunker, pre prohibition. It's all underground again. The beautiful limestone walls. Like, it's been here forever. It just came. It came with the building. The original build, before Moonshine was here, it was a restaurant called Amelia's. Amelia's was like a really. I didn't know it, but I have been told it was a really quaint, you know, high end kind of fancy French restaurant. Back in the day. There was nothing around here. I don't even think there was a convention center. The hotels weren't here. It was just like where moonshine eyes at the Waterloo Compound. There was nothing around us, so Amelia's didn't do so hot. But they did do a renovation in the cellar that we're in. And it was a beautiful wine cellar. So this was. This experience happened after my second kid and I did breastfeed all of them. And while I was working I had to find a place to, to pump. And this is where I ended up coming. So I was sitting at the table, zero cell service, the doors closed, cuz, you know, obviously privacy. Suddenly I'm like halfway through one of the lights goes out. But again it goes out 100%. It didn't just like dim, it went out. And that was the one above me. So I thought, okay, this is interesting. Didn't really. I just went 1, 2, 3, 4, turned it back on because I had to hit it four times to turn it all the way back on to the brightness. Then about five seconds later, the left side light went down and I was like, okay, something's happening here, so I'm not going anywhere because I was full. And so I put my head down and one of our managers told me one time, like if anything happens, you just have to talk to them. I was like, okay. So I said, I put my head back up. I said, hi, my name is Devin, I have two girls, I just gave birth, their name's Ellie and edlin. Ellie is 2 years old and Eden, you know, whatever. And I started talking and I was like, I hear that you had a family and you love your family too. Like I'm just here feeding my babies. And then as soon as I stopped, all of the lights went out. Like every single one, all four, all at one time, all 100%. And it felt like an eternity again. I wasn't scared though. It was very odd. I was stuck. I couldn't do anything in my head. I thought, well, it's just going to be really dark down here and I have to figure out how to unplug. And that's all I was thinking. But I did put my head down and probably about 10 seconds later, I don't even know how many seconds, 10 to 15. Again felt like a really long time because this pitch black down here, the lights all went back on to the brightest I've ever seen the lights. And it was just like intensely bright. And then that was that. I stayed down there probably five more minutes and then it's like, okay, bye, and closed the door and that was that. So that's probably my oddest experience. I thought that it was the little boy. I've heard that there's a little boy and he likes to mess with people. Jordan's my office mate and we, we think that the little boy likes to mess with her computer a lot. So I don't know, I just. That was the weirdest thing. So again, that was. Adelyn was just born and she's eight years old now. A lot of stuff really didn't happen to me in between. I do see. I'll see shadows in the corner, but I don't see anything. It's not. It's. It's less seen with my eyes, but more sensing that something's over there. The last story that that has happened to me was in the office computer started acting up. And I'm the event manager and I have a ton of stuff on my computer. And it was like during one of the busiest seasons and I was losing my mind. I probably was here 12 hours a day. So I unplugged it. I took a video of what was happening, unplugged it. Cause I was so mad. And took it to Best Buy, took it to Geek Squad. That's how intense it was. So what was happening was I really thought there was a virus on it because this popup kept happening and it was the weirdest pop up. And then like a letter would hit down like K or whatever, or nine. It wasn't spelling anything. I'm just giving you examples for letters. But the pop up kept coming up. We pay for virus protection, so there should be nothing on our computer. So I ended up taking it to Geek Squad and I showed him the video because I thought, if this doesn't happen, I have it on my phone, I'm gonna show him what's going on. He plugs it in, everything's perfect. He's like, there's not. I don't. I'm not finding anything with your computer. No signs of any sort of hacking or whatever. So I marched back here because it was the middle of the day, and I came back, plugged it back in, and one time it was like a goodbye pop up. I don't know. It happened one time and then that was it and it never happened again. And I really think this could be totally false. But I really think that my logical explanation for this is that whenever the medium came through, maybe spirits came through with them, somehow got stuck in my wires. I don't know how it works with electronic. I'm not kidding because I think this really can happen. But I think Catherine kicked him out because I think that she was like, you don't belong here. You're causing problems. Get out of here. I think it was Catherine that kicked that spirit out. I don't know though.

G (69:18)

My name's Cameron Trevino. I am the head bartender here at Kinfolk. I've been here since February 2022. Off and on for the last three and a three years. I'd say I got hired here at about six weeks after Kinfolk opened. But the week before, a week and a half before I was hired on, there was an incident at the bar that we caught on camera, on the security cameras. So I'm more than happy to show you here shortly. But what happened initially was it was around this time, actually, when we were getting everything set up as per usual, and, you know, we were still, like, getting familiar with ourselves, getting familiar with the team, getting, like, getting things set up. But as we were setting up, there was a batch bottle of gin on. On top of the bar top, and that bottle of gin imploded on itself. But not only the gin imploded on itself. We had a stack of charcuterie boards all fell down at the same time. On the video, you can see Rocky. He was the one that was prepping. Like, his hands go up. He's like, that wasn't me. I didn't do anything. Because there was an accident prior, before, and he had to go to the er. That's a whole different story. Not paranormal, but the bottle, it on itself, and the Shakuri board fell at the same time. And no one could explain, like, why that happened. But, yeah, I think the reasoning why that happened was just more of just not recognizing the space, who it was, who was here before, essentially. And it made more. It made a lot of sense, you know, to. To make it a tradition down here at Kinfolk, because kinfolk's part of a lot of traditions, family connection and just recognizing, really. So, yeah, that's. That's kind of my interpretation on what could have been. And I still think that it is, you know, honestly, because, I mean, I still get those feelings of presence every once in a while. Not so much in kin folk, but like, in the other areas of the restaurant, especially at the Sunday house. I've had feelings, a presence in the Sunday house before, but nothing, like, too. Too intense. But it's just more of that, like, sixth sense feeling of, like, some. Someone's behind me, or. I remember feeling, like, kind of petrified in a way, where I felt the presence was kind of, like, not taking over me. But it felt enough like where I was just like. I kind of just stood still for a second, and I just. I was, like, held captive for a moment, and then I was just like, all right, let's keep setting up, Ari, you know? But, yeah, I kind of just stopped what I was doing and just looked in the Mirror and felt like I saw, like, some type of person behind me. And then I just, like, snapped, snap out of it after two seconds. But it didn't feel like it was like a child or anything like that. It just felt like an adult woman presence in that room from what I felt, essentially.

D (71:57)

So, yeah.

E (71:59)

Hi, I am Sarah Baxter, and I work at Moonshine in downtown Austin. I have been here 18 years in October. I'm the bar manager. So I spend a lot of late nights here, and I've seen a lot of things. To start you off, I'll talk about when I did not believe in the ghost here. I heard a lot of stories about plates and glasses falling off of shelves, champagne bottles exploding that were flat, things like that. But I just didn't really truly believe it. One day when I was pretty young here, so probably like year two, I was in our back alley, which is where the team hangs out. And at the end of the shift and where we store a bunch of things, it's very dark, or back then.

D (72:40)

It was very dark.

E (72:41)

There was no lighting or anything like that. And one of our support girls, Maria, who has been here for 20 years, she came out the gate and it was super dark. And she said, who is that? And I put my cell phone under my chin and let it glow to light my face. And I said, it's me, the ghost, to mess with her. And my cell phone shot across the alley down the hill. So I didn't mess with them anymore after that. And I started to respond, inspect them, and kind of pay attention to what was happening. I had heard one of the ghosts was a little boy or a child. Actually, we didn't know it was a little boy. We all thought it was a little girl. And I was told that there was this particular area in the restaurant where there was a lot of ghost activity. And we call that Table 34. And at the time, we were starting to get complaints from guests to our general manager, Steve, that the team was walking past people while they were dining and touching their shoulders and blowing on the backs of their necks. We were like, there's no way anyone who works here is blowing on the back of your neck while you're dining in our restaurant. So then we had this ghost crew come in. They were on some ghost show on tv, and we told them the story about that there was a table that in particular got lots of complaints on. People didn't want to sit, sit there. It was really cold and drafty, and without them knowing what table it was, they pointed to that table and they said, is it that one? Because we're getting a lot of ghost activity. And sure enough, it was table 34. So after working here for probably six or seven years, I ran to an old friend and she's a really cool artist lady. And she said, did you know that I used to live on that property with my firstborn child and my first husband? And I was like, that is wild. And I asked her, is it haunted? So it turns out that the small building on the property, the Sunday house, the historic building that we now use for private events, was actually her home on the property. And at the time, this place was kind of like a artsy, fartsy little hippie community, like antiques and artwork and English gardens on the patios. She lived in there and she was very young and she had a son. Her husband was very abusive. So when I asked her if this place was haunted, and mind you, I'd only actually done the cell phone experience and then heard about Table 34, she stopped everything and said, absolutely. And I said, how do you know? And she said when my husband would come after me and I was an 18 year old young mother and tried to attack me, that the ghost would slam and lock doors to protect me between him and I. So that was pretty wild. And you can really tell in the sunny house late at night that there is a presence in there when you're alone in there. Late at night. Whenever I'm getting done with my bar shift, I'll have to go do liquor orders and stuff like that. And it's a very quiet time and it's really dark outside and it's always creepy. And I'm not really happy about being alone up here doing it. But this one particular time I'm sitting up there and doing my order. It's totally quiet, no fans on, nothing. And I look over at the waste basket by Jordan's desk and the trash bag is just rolling. Like it almost as if someone's tucking it around the trash can the whole time. And so I'm like, okay, is this a bug? So I take it out, shake it out. There's nothing in it, there's nothing on. So I put it back on. And you have to remember there's no fan blowing or anything like that. It takes about two seconds and then it starts rolling again as if a child was playing with a trash bag. And I was like, that's it. Hit print.

D (76:19)

I'm out of here.

E (76:19)

Not going to be alone in this office anymore. Turns out we have a lot of employees who have children, but specifically Jordan and Devin. And when all of their kids are like three and younger, and when they come into the office, they all go straight to that trash can and start playing, playing with it. And we have told them we have to put it up, we have to hide it. I mean, every single. There's five kids who spend time in that office. All of them, before the age of three would play with that trash can. Pretty wild stuff. Sunny House feels female down here in Ken Folk feels female. And we kind of know who it is, which is Catherine. The Carriage House Bar. The old Carriage House Bar. That is definitely male. We believe that that is Adolf, Catherine's husband, is who that would be. And then, of course, the child who we thought was a little girl, but now we've been told was a little boy. It took a lot of digging to find records of the little boy who.

D (77:12)

Had been killed by a streetcar on.

E (77:13)

The corner, right where that Table 34 is in that general area, which is wild originally. I mean, when I started working here, everyone told me that it was a young girl ghost and that she had fallen in a well on the property and died.

D (77:28)

And this is what we were all told.

E (77:29)

And so what we call the veranda, which is one of our patios on third street, behind it is what looks like an old well of the property. And so we all believed it, of course, only for when we did the other podcast with those ladies, they said it took them forever to dig it up and to find the records, they found one tiny article that a little boy had been killed by a streetcar in the corner. He was a young black boy. And that's why she thinks that there's.

D (77:56)

Not much record of about it, because it was a long time ago.

E (77:59)

And so after that, we were like, oh, I guess it's a boy. But of course, you know, we're not positive, but going with the child ghost experience. So he hangs out over in 34. I know that people used to leave toys there and they would get moved overnight and stuff like that, but he really loves to be up in the office. That's where he hangs out the most.

A (78:20)

What Sarah mentioned came from another paranormal podcast that once covered moonshine. I knew I'd need to dig deeper to confirm that story about a young boy's death and maybe even this rumor of a girl who fell down a well. The idea seemed to stick with the staff, especially Larry. His daughter's drawings of a young girl and her imaginary friend made many believe a playful child spirit might be behind this mischief. The shoulder taps at table 34, the flickering lights, even the odd happenings in the upstairs office. Office. For now, we'll put a pin in that mystery, because to end this episode, I want to share something rarely discussed at Moonshine. Almost every staff member I spoke with mentioned one person, Sonja. They said she'd experienced some of the most disturbing events here, but she never talks about them. After some convincing, Sonja agreed to sit down with me during a quiet moment in her shift inside the old Sunday house. And this is what she shared with me.

H (79:20)

I'm Sonja. I'm our general manager here at Moonshine Downtown. I've been with the company going on eight years now. I've been in management for about six. And I have a couple of stories of interactions I've had. And generally I didn't believe in spirits and stuff like that. I was very skeptic about it, honestly. I felt like really it was generally a certain kind of personality type that always believed in that and people who had stories and stuff, and it just. Just really wasn't me. So it's just not anything I was ever really open to. And being here for as long as I have and the experiences I've had has definitely changed that 100%. I'm kind of notorious for having the few interactions that I. I don't really share very often because they don't happen to me anymore. So I kind of feel like I don't want to breathe life back into those situations. But really, I don't really have any poor experiences regularly like I did when I first started managing. So let's go back like six years when I first got into management. What happens there is all of a sudden you've got access to this very old building for late hours that, that you didn't, you know, when you were like a server on the floor or what have you. So being very ambitious and wanting to do a good job at management here, I would stay up here really, really late by myself and do paperwork until like 2 o' clock in the morning. I did that a lot starting off, so I feel like doing so. That's when I first started noticing. About like a month into it, I started noticing, like, I would get creepy feelings, kind of like maybe somebody was watching me when I was in the office. And I know that could be also we are downtown. So I really chalked it up to, you know, we're downtown. There's often like, you know, we've got trespassers on the property. Sometimes there's, you know, there's always Something going on. So I kind of chalked it up to, you know, just being paranoid about that. But it was a very strong feeling. And one night, and again, it was about a month ago, into management, Here I was again here at two o' clock in the morning doing paperwork. I had, like, I don't know, an especially uneasy feeling in the office. I was definitely by myself. The chefs, everybody had already left before midnight. So I'd been here for several hours, and the feeling was almost overwhelming. And at that point, I would generally, if I was here that late, I would call, like, my sister or my husband whenever I went to leave, you know, or sometimes I'd be like, I'm just creeped out. Just stay on the phone with me while I check out, you know, if anything's in Jordan's office or anything's in the back. And they all thought I was silly, but still, they were nice and helpful and stay on the phone with me for emotional support. This time, whenever I started getting the willies, my husband didn't answer. And so I was just like, okay, I'm toughing it out. Nothing's wrong. I was in my head. And so I was stalling my head. I don't believe in that kind of stuff. Anyway, so I used the restroom and the office. And as I'm in there, I start to hear, like, a very loud drip sound. And it was. I mean, it was very loud. There's nothing going on. We have a shower in there. So I checked to make sure there was, like, nothing leaking. I know it's a small space, so you would definitely be able to find the source of this dripping sound. And I could not. So it was very strange. And then this dripping sound started just becoming very pronounced, much louder and louder. Like, literally drip, drip, drip, drip, until it kind of morphed into, like, a pounding. So I was very nervous. I stood up. I'm like, standing right next to the office door, and I've got my hands, like, on the door, and I can feel it. I can literally feel, like, vibrations of this banging sound. So it would definitely be something I would say is stronger than somebody knocking on the door. And definitely, definitely stronger than anybody, like, a person trying to bang it. It seems like the whole building shook. So I'm in the bathroom, and I don't want to leave because I'm literally feeling, like, a pounding sound happening. You know, this is the vibrations from it through the walls. It was very, very unnerving. And it became, like, aggressively loud for a moment. And once it stopped, I was like in full panic. I was like, oh my God. Oh my God. I don't know to do here. I do not want to leave the bathroom right now. I've got a good friend, Vicki, who's a bartender, so she was one of the few people who I thought definitely would be awake at 2am So I gave her a call and she was closing up her bar, thankfully. So let's just. Just be on the phone with me while I come out of the bathroom. I'm going to lock up the building. I'm going to get out of here, but I just want you to stay on the phone with me because I'm very, very freaked out. And so she did stayed on the phone with me. I walk out of the bathroom, nothing's wrong. Everything seems okay in the building. So I like, lock up the office. And the way our office is set up, it's that the office is upstairs, and then you lock it and you have to go outside of the building, down the stairs. And then to get back into the building, you go through the veranda side, right? So at some point you're outside, and then you have to go back in when you're locking up at night. So I'm outside, you know, talking to her, everything's fine. Locked the office, going down the stairs. And then I kind of pregame with her. I'm like, okay, I got to go in the building right now. And I'm super freaked out still. So just stay on the phone with me. Everything's going to be cool. I'm going to run in, I'm going to set the alarm, I'm going to clock out, make sure to check this door and make sure it's locked. And then I'm going to book it, and then we're good. So we've got a total of like 60 seconds, right? This whole thing's going to last 60 seconds. I'm going to be okay. Everything's cool. She's like, okay. So I have to book it inside. And I'm like a nervous talker, I think. So, like, I'm on the phone and I'm like, okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm running over to the computer, the pos and I'm like clocking out. Like, Vicki's on the phone with me, everything's okay.

D (85:07)

Da, da da da da.

H (85:08)

And then I run across to where the alarm is, push in the numbers, and as soon as I walk out of the door and, and lock it.

E (85:16)

I was like, okay.

H (85:17)

And then I tuned back into the you know, conversation I'm having on the phone or the fact that my friend's on the phone. So I realized she's literally yelling at me. And she's like, do you need me to call apd? Are you okay? And I was like, vicki, yeah, dude, I'm fine. I just got out of the building. Everything's okay. What's up? And she's like, oh, my God. Sonia, are you okay? The last minute, I've been hearing people screaming at you.

F (85:41)

You.

H (85:41)

Like, I thought you were being attacked. I literally thought you were being attacked. There was like voices so loud, it sounded like somebody had jumped you. I was about to call the cops and say, oh, my God, my friend's been attacked in the building. I was like, what? She said that as soon as I walked back into the building, over the phone, she could hear a man's voice, a woman's voice. They were just very, very loud. And she thought it was like a group of people who were attacking me and they were just screaming. Like, she couldn't make out exactly what they were saying, but it was something very aggressive and kind of violent. So she was really under the impression that when I was in the building, I was being attacked by people. And as soon as I walked back out of the building, literally as soon as I got outside, it went away. Okay, so this is years later and again in management and, you know, I still have a. I still had a habit of staying up here way too late. That's. That has changed over the last last, probably year. Finally, at the time, I was here very late. I was very tired. We're a pretty high volume restaurant and there's a lot going on, so I would take on a lot. Just, I think it was a very stressful time period for me and I was pretty tired and just not, you know, not a very bubbly version of myself, if you will. I was here late, and again, like out of nowhere, I could feel a very. That familiar feeling of somebody, like staring somebody being around to the point where I was like, you know, I got up and I did a loop around the office. My office is in the back. And then we have Jordan and Devin's and then the restroom. So there's essentially three rooms in the office. I felt it so much so that I got up and kind of like peeked around, made sure nothing was, you know, nothing was there. I went back to the desk. I don't know, I felt it very strong. And I called my sister. I was like, I'm getting spooked out. Out right now she's like, well, just go home, dude. It's already really late. And again, it was probably close to 2 o' clock in the morning again, so maybe that's a popular time around here. I'm not sure. But about 2am I start to get my stuff, to gather it together. And then I remembered one last thing I wanted to do, maybe print something off. So I'm standing right in front of the exit of the office, still inside, and I go to turn around, I heard a very, very loud yelling asking me to get out. It was a very loud get out. I mean, I did. I mean, I probably forgot to set the alarm or something that night. Honestly, that was pretty disturbing because I hadn't had any experiences for a very long time. Everything was all, all hunky dory and good. And I, after, you know, talking about that with a few people, I did it very well, may have been tough love, if you will. Like I said, it was. I was kind of stressed out, was, you know, stretching myself a little too thin. And I think that, pretty sure that was perhaps Catherine saying like, okay, enough, chill out. You need to go home. You're doing too much. Like, stop it right now. But she just, she could have said it in a nicer way, perhaps. I'm like, I'm not even Catholic. And I was trying to look for.

D (88:37)

Priests who could come up and bless.

H (88:38)

The space because that was very unnerving. Looking back and after talking about it with the other managers who have been here for years also, and they've had experiences, the general consensus is that the spirits, perhaps Catherine, who is the most dominant spirit I feel like we have at Moonshine, she's very territorial. So I think it was maybe like an adjustment of a new person being like on the property late at night and just like, who are you? And the fact that I didn't acknowledge their existence or that they were there or paid respects or whatever you're supposed to do in that kind of scenario. I think it was maybe like an aggressive effort of making their presence known to me. But yeah, it was really kind of crazy. And you know, I didn't stay up here very late for like several weeks after that. And which is bothersome because, you know, I have stuff to do and I wanted to feel comfortable where I'm at. So everybody was recommending that I just go ahead and, you know, bite, right? And just, just acknowledge that there are spirits here and let them know that you're a welcoming presence, that you're not here to disturb anything or disrupt anything. You know, my big thing, I'm known for being kind of like the maintenance queen around here. So I take very good care of the building, and I'm always doing projects to keep it improved and in good shape. So just kind of talking to the spirits. It's what everyone was recommending. I do just say I come in peace, basically. Right. I kind of felt silly doing that, but I. After that experience, I was willing to try anything because I love this company. I'm not planning on going anywhere. I wasn't then either. So I needed to be comfortable at work. So I went ahead and did that. When I was by myself in the office, I did go ahead and communicate with the spirits that may have been there that I don't mean any kind of trespass or anything like that. I'm here to keep this place in good shape and take care of it. Other than that, it's been smooth sailing. So that's what kind of really sold me on. Maybe there is something to this whole spirits at moonshine kind of thing, because I experienced myself, and then it all kind of seemed to calm down. It was like this. I could almost sense there was this acceptance of my presence there after I went ahead and communicated that I'm here to keep everything good. So that was my experience here.

A (90:53)

Listening to all these stories from Chuck, Larry, and the rest of the staff, one theme became very clear. Everyone I spoke with loves this place. You can hear it in their voices. There's pride, respect, and a genuine affection for these old walls and the history they hold. And maybe that's part of the mystery here. If there's truth to the idea that some of Moonshine's spirits are former residents of this property, perhaps that love is what keeps them here. There's something about this place, the warmth, the energy, the life still moving through it, that seems to hold on to people even long after death. What you've heard tonight is just the beginning. This was the largest set of interviews I've ever conducted for a single location. Seven in total. But to my surprise, by the end of it, the staff told me that there were more, possibly seven others who wanted to share their own interview encounters. So while this investigation was officially underway, I realized I still have a lot of voices left to hear and an entire property to investigate. But what struck me most was the openness of this team. The staff treat each other like family here. And that same trust was extended to me. For the first time in all my years producing the Night Owl, A haunted location actually handed me a key. They told me. I could have the building, all of it, for a whole entire night. Knowing this was one of the most frequently reported haunted sites in Austin, I didn't hesitate. I wanted to bring my full team and thankfully everyone said yes. Jeffrey, Kate, the Brave, Franklin, Alexis and for the first time in years, our original psychic medium, Sarah would be joining us. Moonshine Bar and Grill had opened its doors to us and I couldn't help but wonder if whatever lingered here would welcome us. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Night Owl Podcast. Be sure to join us as this paranormal adventure continues on November 24th. Don't forget to visit thenightowlpodcast.com for info and tickets to our big annual event, the Spirit social, happening on Halloween 2025. Also, be on the lookout for our special secret horror film screening series, the Chilling Season, which will kick off on November 14th at Freddo ATX in Austin, Texas. More details can be found at the Night Owl podcast.com I'd like to thank my investigative team, Alexis, Franklin and Jeffrey for going on these crazy adventures with me Nicholas Fair for his talented musical contributions to this show my dad Sam for his incredible historical research Mikey for his assistance editing Beau Tristan and Devin for their help with our Night Owl events and tours Sandra for keeping us all on schedule and on budget and last but not least, David Dalton of Driftworks Sound for mastering every single episode on the tight turnarounds I give him. Please support their works by visiting our website thenight owlpodcast.com and clicking on the about tab. There you can find links to all their individual works and website websites. This podcast was mastered by David Dalton of Driftworks Sound. Do you have a song that could use a professional touch to get it across the finish line? Do you wish you could remove the sound of a loud air conditioner or distracting mouth noises from your podcast recording? Whatever your issue, David can repair and enhance your audio and help you achieve rich, full professional sound at industry standard loudness levels. Quit struggling with audio engineering and get back to creating. To discuss your options, reach out to david@driftworksound.com that'S-R-I f t worksound.com and set your creative self free.