Siam Orchid Thai Bistro

A Thai restaurant in downtown Concord set inside a historic building with a quiet reputation for things that don't quite have a normal explanation.

The building at 12 North Main Street in downtown Concord has stood through nearly two centuries of New Hampshire's capital city history, and whatever has accumulated within its walls over that time has made itself known to the staff and patrons of Siam Orchid Thai Bistro. The restaurant occupies a section of Concord's historic downtown district, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and contains one of the finest assemblages of 19th and early 20th century commercial architecture in New England. Concord became the state capital in 1808 and the seat of Merrimack County in 1823, and the buildings along North Main Street grew up around the bustle of government, commerce, and the railroad, which arrived in the 1840s. Many of the structures here date to the mid-19th century, and the building housing Siam Orchid carries the accumulated history of multiple uses over many decades.

The activity at the restaurant follows a consistent pattern. Employees report hearing voices in the dining room when the space is empty, conversations that seem to come from occupied tables where no one is sitting. Dishes and glassware move on their own, sliding across surfaces or shifting position between the time a server sets them down and turns away. The disturbances aren't confined to business hours. Residents living in the apartments above the restaurant frequently report hearing strange sounds emanating from the bistro late at night, well after closing, when the space below them is locked and dark.

Paranormal investigators who've visited the location report experiencing a range of phenomena beyond the everyday disturbances noted by staff. The temperature drops noticeably in areas of the dining room with no drafts or ventilation that could explain it. Footsteps are heard in areas where no one is walking. Several investigators have described a persistent feeling of being followed by an unseen presence, a sensation that trails them through the restaurant and intensifies in certain areas.

The investigation findings remain largely anecdotal, and the specific history of the building that might explain the haunting hasn't been definitively established. Concord's downtown has served many purposes over the centuries: the Eagle Hotel, which stood nearby, opened in 1852 on the site of the earlier Eagle Coffee House. Government buildings, law offices, hotels, and taverns have occupied these blocks since before the Civil War. Whatever the original source of the activity, the spirits at Siam Orchid seem less interested in frightening people than in making their presence known.

The restaurant, a charming family-owned Thai bistro that has been operating for years, treats the activity as part of the building's character. The GhostQuest database lists the location among New Hampshire's documented haunted sites, and it appears regularly on roundups of Concord's most haunted addresses. Staff have learned which areas of the restaurant tend to be most active and which hours of the night generate the most noise complaints from upstairs. They don't seem particularly troubled by their unseen companions, though none of them volunteer to close alone.