Kells Irish Pub

An Irish pub occupying the basement of the 1903 Butterworth & Sons mortuary building, Seattle's first purpose-built funeral parlor, accessible through Post Alley adjacent to Pike Place Market.

Edgar Ray Butterworth was born in 1847 and began his entrepreneurial career collecting buffalo bones on the Kansas plains in the 1870s for fertilizer production. After losing his first wife Grace during childbirth, he eventually settled in Centralia, Washington, where he expanded his furniture business into casket sales following a diphtheria outbreak. He relocated to Seattle in 1892, purchasing Cross Undertakers and renaming it E.R. Butterworth and Sons. In October 1903, his flagship mortuary opened at 1921 First Avenue in a five-story Beaux Arts building designed by John Graham Sr., the architect's first commercial commission. The building featured rusticated sandstone and dry-set Roman bricks capped with a galvanized iron cornice decorated with lion heads and balustrades, and it contained a crematorium, columbarium, chapel accommodating two hundred mourners in Flemish oak pews, a casket showroom, and stables. Most notably, it housed the first elevator on the West Coast of the United States, used to transport bodies between the building's five levels on the Post Alley side.

The Butterworths pioneered the concept of the modern one-stop funeral establishment and popularized formaldehyde-based embalming derived from Civil War-era innovations. The mortuary became entangled with serial killer Linda Hazzard in 1911, processing British patient Claire Williamson's body under suspicious circumstances suggesting potential evidence tampering. During the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which claimed 1,003 Seattle lives by year's end, the U.S. Navy contracted with Butterworth for sailor funerals at $100 per casket. Edgar's son Gilbert faced federal fraud charges alleging double-billing families while collecting government reimbursements, though he was ultimately acquitted after a retrial. Edgar Butterworth died on January 1, 1921, after suffering three strokes. Gilbert relocated operations to Capitol Hill in 1923, and the First Avenue building eventually passed through various commercial uses.

In the early 1980s, the McAleese family opened Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub in the basement level on Post Alley, adjacent to Pike Place Market. Within the Pike Place Public Market Historic District, the building sits in one of Seattle's most haunted corridors, and the pub quickly developed a reputation as one of the most paranormally active bars in the Pacific Northwest.

The most frequently reported spirit is known as "the Lady in Waiting," believed to be a woman who died during the 1918 influenza pandemic and whose body was prepared at the Butterworth mortuary. She appears as an elegant figure in period dress, often seen sitting alone at corner tables during quiet afternoon hours, her sad eyes scanning the restaurant as if perpetually waiting for someone who never arrives. Her presence is accompanied by the scent of lilies and a sudden drop in temperature.

A second prominent entity is Charlie, described as a tall, thin man in a dark suit and derby hat who is most frequently spotted in the Guinness mirror behind the bar. He is believed to be a former Butterworth employee, a social spirit drawn to live music performances who moves silently between tables and appears protective of the restaurant, ensuring chairs are properly arranged after hours.

The most endearing spirit is a mischievous red-haired girl believed to be one of several hundred children who died in the 1918 flu pandemic. She is most active during daytime hours when children visit the pub, manipulating objects to create toys and playing pranks on adult patrons. During quiet evenings, staff have observed glasses slide off tables and bars without apparent cause, mirrors shatter spontaneously, and plaster fall from walls with unsettling frequency.

Ross Allison, founder of AGHOST (Advanced Ghost Hunters of Seattle-Tacoma) and creator of the Spooked in Seattle ghost tour, was among the first investigators to examine the premises. His team recorded anomalous EMF readings that appeared to respond intelligently to questions, with the reader blinking once for yes and twice for no. They also captured apparitions on camera and recorded Class A EVP.

Ghost Adventures investigated the building for Season 4, Episode 14, with Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, and Aaron Goodwin traveling to Seattle to explore the former funeral home's connection to corruption and foul play. The crew documented multiple EVPs including voices saying "get off that thing," "looking for my child," "get me outta here," and "I don't like you." They recorded residual sounds of yelling, scratching, shuffling, and footsteps, and Bagans captured a photograph on his infrared digital still camera showing a strange, disfigured, childlike apparition. The team concluded that the souls of those who died for unjust reasons remain trapped within the building's walls.

Additional phenomena reported by staff and patrons over the decades include servers feeling gentle shoulder touches and hearing their names whispered by unseen presences, candles relighting after being extinguished, electronic malfunctions including calls from disconnected numbers, and during Irish music performances, phantom instruments audible alongside live musicians. The pub and the Butterworth Building remain featured stops on multiple Seattle ghost walking tours.