Paranormal pizza? Restaurant owner says ghosts haunt historic Belleville building
When you visit Papa Vito’s Pizza in downtown Belleville, you may expect to find cheesy breadsticks, fresh salad and signature pizzas. You won’t be disappointed, but don’t be too surprised if you end up sharing the dining room with some unique guests.
Papa Vito’s opened its downtown location at 318 East Washington in 2011. The building was constructed in 1852, and it’s been a stagecoach shop and a Lutheran school.
The building has received a certificate for its “haunted” status, and multiple employees and guests have reported witnessing signs of ghosts from the landmark’s past.
One such “ghost,” a stagecoach driver known as Charlie, allegedly made his final stop at 318 East Washington. He was never heard from or seen again after visiting the building, Papa Vito’s owner Gerry Geoppo said.
Staff members have reported feeling Charlie’s presence in the building’s basement, and employees and patrons have also reported other spirits at the pizza parlor.
When 318 East Washington was Zion Lutheran School in the 1920s, a schoolteacher named Effie reportedly died of suicide in the stairwell after some children were injured in a fall from the staircase.
“I think Effie is still in the building, and so are the children,” Geoppo said.
Geoppo and his family are not the only ones to report the ghost of Effie in the building. Once, a child roughly three years old sat with her family in the restaurant combing the air with a doll-sized hairbrush.
When her parents questioned what she was doing, she told her mother she was “just combing Effie’s hair.”
Another day, when Geoppo and other staff members arrived at the recently cleaned restaurant to prepare for the business day, they noticed something on one of the banquet hall’s mirrors.
Up in the top right corner of the mirror were small, child-sized handprints. Geoppo said he looked at the mirror at a side angle to see whether it had any other markings, indicating it may not have been cleaned, the handprints were all he saw.
The Geoppos didn’t purchase the building with the goal to interact with the paranormal, but soon started experiencing things they believe are related to ghost activity.
“When we first came into the building, you could just see the presence and you could note things were coming off the walls like posters, the lights were going off and on, a lot of electricity problems. Just some weird stuff,” Geoppo said.
Along with stapled posters falling off the walls and lights going on and off, Geoppo said his family has had issues with the restaurant’s point-of-sale system.
The POS system once randomly turned on when Papa Vito’s was closed, and it started spitting out tickets with children’s names on them, such as Johnny and Mary, Geoppo said.
The alarm system at Papa Vito’s has also caused trouble. Once, Geoppo was unable to set it, and the system displayed the code “Door 13,” he said.
Paranormal investigation
GhostFind, a paranormal investigator that served the St. Louis and metro-east areas in the 2010s, visited Papa Vito’s in 2012 to determine whether the building was really haunted.
The team spent about five to six hours in the building using audio equipment and infrared lighting to attempt to make contact with the potential ghosts.
“They talked to Effie, they had everything in there that you do to bring this particular ghost, I guess you could say, and we learned a lot from those guys,” Geoppo said.
In the 2012 video, GhostFind investigators asked, “Effie, are you here?” and said she responded “yeah.” They then asked again, “is anyone here?” and said they heard the same voice answer “me.”
A male voice also made sounds, the GhostFind team said in the video. Using their audio equipment, they asked the “ghost” to say the word “open.” They said a voice responded saying “pen.”
The GhostFind video also shows footage of what the investigators described as “orbs” floating above a table at Papa Vito’s.
GhostFind provided Papa Vito’s with a certificate after the investigation concluded, saying the team had determined the building was haunted.
A psychic also visited Papa Vito’s a few years after the downtown location’s opening, and Geoppo said she told him she could hear children talking and laughing in the air vents.
Although he believes ghosts to be present in his restaurant’s building, Geoppo said he was not afraid of them. He said they seem comfortable with his family and don’t cause too much trouble, and that there’s never been an incident with someone being hurt by a ghost.
“As you would get used to a squeaky door in your house, or a banister top that moves when you’re trying to hold onto the banister, you wind up getting used to it,” Geoppo said.
