18th-century Avenida Menendez building where a woman died in an 1887 kitchen fire — considered one of St. Augustine's most documented haunted restaurants
46 Avenida Menendez, St. Augustine, FL 32084
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Restaurant; menu pricing applies. No separate admission for paranormal content.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Ground-floor dining room accessible from Avenida Menendez
Equipment
Photos OK
Spanish colonial period occupancy · St. Augustine bayfront historic district
The building on the bayfront at 46 Avenida Menendez is among St. Augustine's older commercial structures, occupying a lot with documented occupancy from the Spanish colonial period. The figure of Catalina de Porras is associated with the building's 18th-century history — she was a Spanish colonial resident who, according to accounts of the period, left for Cuba when Spain ceded Florida to Britain in 1763 and returned after Spain regained the territory in 1783 to reclaim her family's property on the bayfront.
The building's most concrete dark history entry comes from 1887, when a fire in the kitchen killed a woman on the premises. The circumstances and the victim's name were not preserved in the sources available during research; paranormal accounts describe her as the primary haunting presence in the restaurant's kitchen and back areas, appearing as a figure in a white gown.
The building operated as a Chart House restaurant for a period before being renamed Catalina's Garden — a direct reference to the colonial-era resident — and later Puerta Verde before taking the Harry's Seafood Bar & Grille name. Each incarnation has drawn on the building's reputation as one of the most active haunted dining establishments in St. Augustine's Historic District. Ghost tour operators regularly include the address as a stop, citing the kitchen fire death and the Catalina legend as two distinct paranormal threads in the building.
Sources
Staff and guests at the Avenida Menendez restaurant have reported two figures over the decades. The primary reported presence is a woman in a white gown, linked by most accounts to the 1887 kitchen fire victim. She has been described walking briskly through the dining room, appearing in the mirror of the women's bathroom, and detected as a perfume smell with no identifiable source.
The second thread involves Catalina de Porras — the colonial-era resident whose story of departure and return during the British Period is documented in St. Augustine's history, though her paranormal connection to the building is entirely interpretive. The restaurant was at one point named Catalina's Garden in her honor, embedding her identity into the location's commercial history in a way that has reinforced her presence in the haunting narrative.
The water-temperature incident logged by one visitor account — a faucet that turned itself back to full hot blast — falls within the poltergeist category of reports at the address. Ghost tour operators in St. Augustine rank this building among the city's better-documented haunted dining establishments, citing the volume and consistency of staff reports across multiple restaurant tenants and names.
Notable Entities
Full-service restaurant in an 18th-century building on St. Augustine's bayfront. The building has operated under multiple names including Chart House, Catalina's Garden, and Puerta Verde. Paranormal incidents have been reported by staff and guests over decades of operation.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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