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Reported phenomena — as catalogued
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The last intact 19th-century lager brewery in the U.S., with dining 43 feet underground in the old aging vaults.
102 North Market Street, Mount Joy, PA 17552
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Restaurant entrees roughly $15-35; ghost tours from $10 (includes $5 off a same-day meal); seasonal paranormal investigations priced separately.
Access
Limited Access
A connected complex of 19th-century brewery buildings; the Catacombs dining room sits 43 feet underground and is reached by stairs only.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1859 · Only intact 19th-century lager-era brewery complex in the United States · Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, June 4, 1973 · Founded by Bavarian immigrant brewer Alois Bube · Lager-aging vaults dug 43 feet underground, now a dining room known as the Catacombs
Alois Bube was born in Bavaria in 1851, apprenticed as a brewer, and emigrated to the United States in 1869, part of the same wave of German brewing immigrants that produced names like Yuengling and Busch. By the late 1870s he owned a small brewery on Mount Joy's Market Street.
Bube expanded steadily. The brewery building incorporates stonework dating to 1859, and in 1880 he added the three-story Central Hotel next door, a Late Victorian structure with an ornate cornice and arched windows. A fire in 1893 destroyed the hotel's original mansard roof, which was rebuilt flat. Below the complex, workers dug vaults roughly 43 feet into the ground to age lager at a steady temperature — standard practice for German-style brewers before mechanical refrigeration, and now known as the Catacombs.
Bube died in 1908, and Prohibition shut the brewery down in 1920. The buildings passed through decades of limited use until Sam Allen bought the property in 1982 and reopened it as a restaurant and bar, adding dining rooms in the old bottling works and the underground vaults. On-site brewing returned in 2001. The complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and is generally described as the only intact 19th-century lager-era brewery complex remaining in the United States.
Sources
Bube's leans into its haunted reputation more openly than most restaurants of its kind, largely through Jean Ellis, who has guided the property's ghost tours for years and traces her lineage directly to Alois Bube. In April 2012, she invited the SyFy series Ghost Hunters to investigate, hoping to determine whether reported activity was really her family. The resulting episode, "A Family of Spirits," became one of the show's more cited installments: after hearing accounts of lanterns going out on their own, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson lit two lamps in the Catacombs and asked whatever was present to extinguish one — and one went dark. The crew also documented reports of an older man in period dress, a male figure in a long coat, glassware and bottles moving unassisted, and shadows along the underground corridors.
Separately from the TV investigation, tour lore describes a young woman occasionally seen in the Catacombs and attributes her to a member of the Bube family connected to the brewery's decline in the early twentieth century — a story that circulates on the tours but isn't independently documented. The brewery markets ghost tours and a seasonal candlelit dinner series built around these accounts rather than treating them as settled fact.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
The brewery's original 1880s lager-aging vaults, dug 43 feet below street level, now serve as a themed dining room. Reservations are recommended, especially for the seasonal candlelit "Dinner with the Dead" events — check the website for current dates.
A guided walk through the brewery, hotel, and Catacombs led by staff who cover the building's history and its paranormal reputation, including the 2012 Ghost Hunters investigation. Not recommended for children under 12.
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