You Might Be Joined By A Ghostly Diner At This Haunted Oregon Pizzeria
By Catherine Armstrong|Published July 26, 2019
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Catherine Armstrong
Author
Writer, editor and researcher with a passion for exploring new places. Catherine loves local bookstores, independent films, and spending time with her family, including Gus the golden retriever, who is a very good boy.
People just love a good ghost story, and there’s no shortage of supposedly haunted places all over the Beaver State. It’s impossible to prove the existence of otherworldly spirits mingling with the living, but there’s a pizzeria in Portland that has a long history of its ghost named Nina. Visit Old Town Pizza & Brewing, and you just might see her yourself.
Old Town Pizza & Brewing opened its doors in 1973, but the history of the building goes all the way back to 1880, when the Merchant Hotel was built here. The pizzeria/brewery sits in the space that was once the hotel's lobby.
During the early days of the hotel, this neighborhood in Portland had quite a reputation. The Shanghai Tunnels run right underneath the building, and despite its upstanding reputation, prostitution was said to be commonplace at the Merchant Hotel.
When you walk into this place today, you'll find that the historic significance of the building has been preserved. It's like walking right back into the late 1800s.
In fact, the window where you order your pizza once served as the registration desk for the hotel. The vintage fixtures and antique furniture aren't the only things here that date back to the property's old days - it's said that there's also a ghost named Nina who has been here for more than 100 years.
The story goes that Nina was one of the prostitutes who worked at the Merchant Hotel. She had been sold as a sex slave, and was living a life of misery at the hotel when she was contacted by missionaries who sought to help her escape.
Nina exchanged information about her captors with the missionaries, and she soon disappeared from the hotel. But not long afterward, her body was found at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Apparently, she had never actually escaped, but was killed before she could leave.
Guests report seeing Nina in various parts of the pizzeria, but her presence is mostly felt in the back room, which shares a wall with the old elevator shaft. Her name is carved into the brick here, and some guests have reported seeing a woman in a black dress in the dining room, who disappears into thin air.
Have you ever seen anything weird at this pizzeria? Learn more about Old Town Pizza & Brewing on its website, and follow its Facebook page to see what’s going on there.
