Ernestine & Hazel's

It's been a church, a pharmacy, and a brothel — now it's a dive bar famous for its Soul Burgers and its ghosts. Staff at Ernestine & Hazel's say the former working girls never really left the building.

Ernestine and Hazel's has been called the most haunted bar in America, and given what happened inside these walls over the past century, the title may be well earned. The building on South Main Street in Memphis dates to the late 1800s and has served as a church, a dry goods store, and a pharmacy before it became the establishment that would make it infamous. The pharmacy was owned by Abe Plough, who'd go on to become a multi-millionaire and create the Coppertone skincare line. Plough allegedly gave the building to the two cousins who ran the beauty salon upstairs: Earnestine Mitchell and Hazel Jones.

The downstairs became a jazz cafe. The upstairs remained a salon in some rooms, while others were offered at hourly rates. Memphis's segregation and politics often kept police out of Black-owned businesses, and the upper floors became the city's most infamous brothel, operating until the late 1980s. During the 1950s and 1960s, Earnestine's husband Sunbeam booked acts like Aretha Franklin, Chuck Berry, and Ray Charles at nearby Club Paradise, and most nights the performers would make their way to Earnestine and Hazel's for cheap neck bones, more drinks, and dancing before walking two blocks to sleep at the Lorraine Motel.

Earnestine Mitchell died in 1998 and Hazel Jones in 1995. The building was sold in 1992, and Russell George, who took over management, reopened it on St. Patrick's Day 1993 with its now-famous one-item menu: the Soul Burger. George himself died by suicide in an upstairs room, adding another layer of tragedy to the building's history.

The activity centers on the upstairs rooms where the brothel once operated. According to local accounts, prostitutes were killed there, and their spirits have never left. A piano can be heard playing from the upper floors when no one's up there, and sounds of people wandering around and talking carry down the stairs from empty rooms. A fifteen-year employee once witnessed something so terrifying upstairs that he came running down through the bar, out the door, and all the way home -- and refuses to go upstairs to this day.

The jukebox is the most famous haunted object in the bar. It turns itself on without being touched, and employees report that it plays songs eerily relevant to whatever conversation is happening at the time. On the day James Brown died, two employees were discussing his passing when the jukebox suddenly blared one of his signature tracks. People standing near the jukebox report feeling as if someone is touching them.

The lights behave erratically -- dimming very low without explanation, then brightening almost enough to blind people in broad daylight. Nearly every photograph taken inside the bar captures orbs and shapes, and some photographs reveal what appear to be human faces on the walls. A former employee claims to have been able to communicate with Earnestine's spirit, receiving messages from the other side.

Ernestine and Hazel's remains open as a dive bar on South Main Street, still serving Soul Burgers and cold drinks to the living -- while an unknown number of spirits from its years as a brothel, jazz club, and pharmacy continue to occupy the rooms upstairs.