Who doesn’t love great Mexican food and ghost stories? It seems this restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida, has them both.
According to several online reports, the TacoLu Baja Mexicana restaurant, located at 1712 Beach Blvd, is reportedly haunted by the ghost of Alpha Paynter.
The Jaxson Magazine covered the location on an October 31, 2019, article stating, “Paynter once operated a boarding house in the cabin and is buried behind the building. It is said her apparition has appeared near the huge limestone fireplace in the center of the main dining room and in other parts of the restaurant. Paynter has been seen so much that the building is now listed in The National Directory of Haunted Places.”
News 4 in Jacksonville also covered the story, giving more history of the building, which says, “the building was originally a boarding house built in 1932. It was run by Miss Alpha Paynter.”
Eventually, Paynter converted the boarding house into a restaurant in the late 1940s, named The Homestead, which specialized in serving Southern cuisine. Alpha Paynter died in 1962, and legend says that she never left the premises.
Written By John G. Clark Jr.