Est. 1912 · 1912 Desel-Boettcher pharmaceutical warehouse · National Register of Historic Places contributing building (Main Street/Market Square Historic District) · One of the first successful Market Square adaptive-reuse projects (1974) · Damaged and closed by 2017 Hurricane Harvey flooding
The Desel-Boettcher Building opened in 1912 at 901 Commerce Street, on a downtown block within what is now the Main Street/Market Square Historic District. The building served for six decades as a pharmaceutical-distribution warehouse before being acquired by the Spaghetti Warehouse restaurant chain and redeveloped as a sit-down Italian restaurant in 1974.
The restaurant became a fixture in the Market Square redevelopment narrative — Preservation Houston and the Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission cite it as one of the first commercially successful adaptive-reuse projects in the district. It operated continuously from 1974 through August 2017.
In late August 2017, Hurricane Harvey's floodwaters seeped through the upper floor and caused significant damage. The restaurant did not reopen. In 2018, a new owner purchased the building with announced plans for a historically sensitive renovation engineered to accommodate future flood events; Preservation Houston covered the acquisition and rehab plans. As of 2026, the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and any exterior changes must be approved by the Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission. The Spaghetti Warehouse chain re-emerged in Houston as 'Warehouse 72' at the Marq*E Entertainment Center rather than returning to the Commerce Street location.
Sources
- https://www.preservationhouston.org/news/2018/7/10/new-owner-to-rehab-former-spaghetti-warehouse-building
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_Warehouse
- https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/new-plans-for-old-spaghetti-warehouse-make-it-floodable/285-575615205
- https://cooglife.com/2016/11/print-haunted-spaghetti-warehouse/
Phantom footsteps on upper floorsShadow figures in dining areasKitchen dishware moving on its ownShoulder taps on staffShoelaces tied together while standing
Spaghetti Warehouse Houston had one of the most-cited paranormal reputations in Texas during its 1974-2017 restaurant tenure. The central legend, repeated by Ghost Texas, US Ghost Adventures, and the University of Houston student magazine Cooglife, centers on a pharmacist said to have fallen to his death down the building's freight elevator shaft while working late during the warehouse's early-twentieth-century pharmaceutical years. The wife of the pharmacist is said to have died of grief within a year of the accident. Independent contemporary newspaper documentation of the death has not been recovered in the published paranormal accounts, so the underlying incident should be treated as oral tradition rather than archival fact.
During the restaurant's four decades of operation, staff and patrons regularly reported a consistent set of phenomena: phantom footsteps on upper floors after hours, shadow figures glimpsed in the dining rooms, kitchen-area dishware moving on its own, taps on the shoulder felt by servers in empty corners, and — most distinctively — shoelaces tied together in pairs while servers stood at a station. Cooglife's profile and the Ghost Texas writeup catalog dozens of staff-attributed incidents from the 1980s onward.
The restaurant closed after 2017 Hurricane Harvey flooding. The building's reputation remains a fixture on Houston ghost-walk routes, though the interior is no longer accessible to the public.
Notable Entities
The pharmacist (elevator shaft fall)The pharmacist's grieving wife