HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
A downtown Concord tavern across from the State House where staff describe a boy who walks backward into a wall of the B-Lounge.
132 North Main Street, Concord, NH 03301
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Working restaurant and tavern. Order off the menu; no ghost-tour fee. The B-Lounge is the bar area where the apparition reports center.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Street-level downtown restaurant on North Main Street.
Equipment
Photos OK
Downtown Concord landmark across from the State House
The Barley House occupies a commercial building on North Main Street in the center of Concord, the New Hampshire state capital. Its location places it among the older brick storefronts that face the State House, a block that has anchored civic and downtown life in Concord since the nineteenth century.
The restaurant operates as a full-service tavern, with a main dining room and a separate bar area known as the B-Lounge. It functions as a working downtown business rather than a historic-house museum, and most of what is written about the building's past comes from coverage of the restaurant itself rather than a formal architectural history.
The building's haunted reputation has been part of local Halloween-season coverage in Concord for years. Around Concord, a regional lifestyle outlet, placed a local library at the top of its 2019 list of Concord's haunted places and included the Barley House among its "More Haunted Places," and New Hampshire Magazine has folded it into its statewide haunted-places roundups. Those accounts treat the lore as restaurant folklore retold by staff, not as documented historical events, and no death or tragedy at the address is established in the available sources.
Visitors today experience the Barley House as an active restaurant. The ghost stories are part of its institutional storytelling and are best encountered over a meal in the B-Lounge during normal business hours.
Sources
The Barley House's best-known story centers on the B-Lounge, the restaurant's bar area. According to Around Concord's 2019 feature, staff and patrons have reported a little boy who appears in the back-left corner of the lounge while people are having cocktails. When someone walks toward him, the boy is said to step backward and pass into the wall.
New Hampshire Magazine has also folded the Barley House into its statewide haunted-places coverage. This report is presented as staff folklore rather than an investigated claim, and no specific identity, date, or death is attached to the figure in the available sources.
There is no recurring paranormal program at the Barley House. The lore lives in the way long-time employees retell it to curious guests, and the back-left corner of the B-Lounge is the spot most often pointed out. Anyone visiting should treat the building as a working downtown restaurant and the stories as part of its local character.
Notable Entities
Stop in for a meal or a drink in the B-Lounge, the bar area where staff and patrons have described a small boy who appears in the back-left corner during cocktail service and walks backward into the wall when approached. There is no organized paranormal program here; this is an ordinary downtown restaurant visit, with the lore retold by long-time staff.
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