FOOD .

Watering Hole

B. Maxwell's Restaurant and Victorian Pub


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Published: Sep 7, 2006

B. Maxwell's Restaurant and Victorian Pub

37 N. Main St., Doylestown, 215-348-1027

Everyone who sees her says the same thing. White dress, dark hair pulled back. They see her reflection in the mirror at the top of the staircase, or they catch her whisking down the long hallway. She brushes against elbows, taps shoulders and calls out names. Relatively harmless for a ghost whose husband, legend has it, returned from the Civil War mentally disturbed, and ended up committing suicide in the basement of what is now B. Maxwell's in Doylestown.

Harmless? Maybe. Mischievous? Definitely. Both husband and wife have been known to hold freezers shut, flicker lights, rattle doors and order food the restaurant doesn't carry.

Maxwell's co-owner Rich Smock says most of his encounters with the ghosts took place when he first started working there. On one relatively slow night, he walked into the bar area, and passed a man seated on a stool. Well after he had walked by, Smock says, "I heard the guy move his chair in and say, 'Excuse me.' I looked back at him, and he looked at me. I was 10 feet down the other end of the bar."

Since then, Smock has learned to make nice with the feminine force haunting the upper floors of the building. (Word has it her husband sleeps in the basement.) "I'm here early and I leave late," says Smock. "If I'm in the building alone, I talk to her."