Central El Paso Italian restaurant in a 100-plus-year-old building that once housed the 1922-chartered Circulo Espirita San Pablo spiritualist church — site of the Syfy Paranormal Witness 'Dining with the Dead' episode and ongoing monthly seance dinners.
3023 Gateway Blvd W, El Paso, TX 79903
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Active Italian restaurant; menu pricing. 'Dining with the Dead' monthly seance dinners are ticketed and sell out in advance.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Ground-floor restaurant interior.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1922 · Neighboring building housed the 1922-chartered Circulo Espirita San Pablo (Texas Spiritualist Association) · Discovery of walled-off room with 1923 plaque and original 1922 charter · Featured on Syfy's Paranormal Witness Season 3 Episode 4 (2013) 'Dining with the Dead' · Hosts ongoing monthly seance dinners
Monteleone's Ristorante operates at 3023 Gateway Blvd W in central El Paso in a building more than a century old. According to Texas Highways, KISS El Paso, and the Texas State Historical Association handbook records, Gary Monteleone opened the restaurant with his wife, Laura, in 2001 to carry on a family Italian-cuisine tradition.
When the Monteleones later expanded into the neighboring building, they discovered — behind 100-year-old plaster — a walled-off room containing funeral prayer cards, decaying photographs, a Virgin Mary figure under the floorboards, and a plaque reading 'CIRCULO ESPIRITA, SAN PABLO, IX-15-1923,' together with a 1922 charter from the Texas Spiritualist Association. The discovery established that the neighboring space had been a chartered spiritualist meeting house in the early 20th century.
Following the discovery, the restaurant became nationally known when the Syfy network filmed an episode of Paranormal Witness ('Dining with the Dead,' Season 3 Episode 4, 2013) at the site. Today, Monteleone's hosts a recurring monthly 'Dining with the Dead' seance and ghost-story dinner that has become a signature El Paso paranormal-tourism event.
Sources
Per KISS El Paso, the Texas Highways feature, and CBS4 El Paso's coverage, paranormal reports at Monteleone's intensified after the family began expanding into the adjoining building that had housed the 1922 Circulo Espirita San Pablo. Laura Monteleone is quoted describing the post-expansion period: 'That's when all chaos broke out.' Reported phenomena during and after the expansion include candles lighting themselves, apparitions encountered by staff, strange voices, and an arm reaching out toward Gary Monteleone from the other side of the front door of the restaurant.
A frequently retold story involves a construction worker who, during the expansion, fled the site in a panic after claiming to see a man with no feet. Psychics consulted by the family — including those featured in CBS4 El Paso's special report — characterized the discovered Spiritualist room as a 'portal' that had been intentionally closed off and that was reopened by the construction work.
The restaurant was featured on Syfy's Paranormal Witness in 2013 ('Dining with the Dead,' Season 3 Episode 4), which dramatized the discovery and subsequent activity. Monteleone's now hosts a recurring monthly 'Dining with the Dead' seance dinner with mediumistic programming as part of its identity. As paranormal-restaurant cases go, Monteleone's is unusually well-documented — with a physical 1922 spiritualist artifact trail, multiple independent journalism features, and a national television episode.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Dinner at the family-owned El Paso Italian restaurant featured in Texas Highways and the Syfy series Paranormal Witness, in a building that once housed the 1922 Circulo Espirita San Pablo spiritualist church.
Monthly ticketed 'Dining with the Dead' seance and ghost-story dinner hosted at Monteleone's, featuring a medium-led seance, dinner service, and storytelling tied to the building's spiritualist past.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Goodsprings, NV
The Pioneer Saloon in Goodsprings, Nevada, was built in 1913 by Clark County commissioner George Fayle and is one of the oldest continuously operating saloons in the state. It is closely associated with actress Carole Lombard, whose 1942 plane crash at nearby Mount Potosi was coordinated, in part, from the building.
Baraboo, WI
The Old Baraboo Inn was built as a boarding house in 1864 directly across from the Baraboo railroad depot. Over a century and a half it served as a honky-tonk bar, a brothel, and a roadhouse said in local accounts to have hosted Prohibition-era figures including Al Capone. It now operates as a bar and grill at 135 Walnut Street and hosts regular ghost-hunt events.
Memphis, TN
Earnestine & Hazel's occupies a building at 531 South Main Street that began as a pharmacy in the late 1930s under Memphis businessman Abe Plough, founder of what became Coppertone. Plough gave the property to two of his hairstylist clients, Earnestine and Hazel, who turned the ground floor into a cafe while the upstairs operated as a brothel into the 1980s. Bud Chittom and Delmer George purchased the property in 1992 and reopened it as the bar that operates today.