Walking into the infamous Ashley’s of Rockledge, at first one wouldn’t expect it to be truly haunted. Popular music is playing with a light chatter from the bar, and karaoke can be heard from a private party the next room over. While it’s seemingly a neighborhood bar, Ashley’s is the site of many ghost stories, specifically one of a doomed 19-year-old girl in 1934. According to legend, Ethel Allen was a regular at Ashley’s, known then as Jack’s Tavern. Allen’s body was discovered on Wednesday November 21, 1934 on the banks of the Indian River near the restaurant. Allen was brutally murdered three days prior, and the last place she was seen alive on an ordinary night at Jack’s Tavern. Although the restaurant’s name has since been changed, it is believed Allen’s ghost still haunts Ashley’s to this day. Customers reported seeing 1930’s style footwear in the stall next to them in the bathroom, apparitions of a young girl in the mirror, and a ghostly figure on the upper level of the restaurant.
This summer, Dave and Dawn Park bought Asheley’s after the previous owner decided to sell following a mysterious mishap with the thermostat. While Dave and Dawn have not had any spooky encounters themselves, Dawn says their staff reports otherwise. Chef Gaston Andrade has seen Ethel walking on the second floor, sometimes seeming upset, and sometimes throwing things.
Reid Emeny, a regular who has been coming to the restaurant since he was a kid, shared two very spooky stories. The first one begins on Halloween back in 2019.
“Me and my four friends went upstairs and we saw a woman looking in the window at us,” Emeny said. He said that there was not a balcony outside the window, so it was impossible for someone to have been up there. Emeny’s second story was about his two-year-old granddaughter. “All of the sudden she saw something and she totally freaked out,” Emeny said. Emeny said she began screaming, crying, and covered her head. “She could speak well enough to say, ‘I don’t want to see her,’” Emeny said. He doesn’t know what his granddaughter saw, but to this day she has not come back to the restaurant since her parents don’t want to further traumatize her.
