Colonial Williamsburg's Candlelit Haunt of Irma
416 E Duke of Gloucester St, Williamsburg, VA 23185
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Colonial Williamsburg dining; entrees typically $25–55. Reservations recommended. Colonial Williamsburg admission not required for restaurant.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved Duke of Gloucester Street; ground-floor dining available
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1772 · Colonial Williamsburg · 18th-Century Tavern Culture · Revolutionary Virginia
Jane Vobe opened King's Arms Tavern on Duke of Gloucester Street in 1772, naming the establishment to signal its allegiance to the Crown at a time when colonial tensions were escalating. Pre-Revolutionary Williamsburg supported a network of taverns and ordinaries; Vobe's establishment distinguished itself by catering to the gentry class — the planters, lawyers, and burgesses who gathered in Williamsburg for the meeting of the colonial legislature.
The menu drew on Virginia's agricultural abundance: game, seafood, and the region's peanut crop contributed to dishes that defined the tavern's reputation. The signature peanut soup has been served continuously at the restored establishment and remains the dish most associated with the King's Arms name.
During the Revolutionary period, the tavern served as a meeting point for figures central to Virginia's role in the independence movement. The building saw the social circuit of colonial politics — dinners that accompanied legislative sessions, and the informal conversations that preceded formal debate.
Colonial Williamsburg, the nonprofit organization that manages and interprets the restored 18th-century town, has operated the restaurant since the mid-20th century. The building is a careful restoration of the 1772 structure. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation maintains extensive archival documentation on the tavern's history, guests, and operations.
Sources
The tavern's most consistent paranormal account centers on a woman called Irma. The details of her story vary between sources, which reflects the folkloric quality of the legend rather than documented historical record: one version describes her as an early live-in manager who died when a dropped candle ignited a fire in the building; another says she was a Colonial Williamsburg employee who suffered a fatal heart attack in an upstairs room during the period of the restored tavern's operation.
What the accounts share is the specificity of candles. When a candle at a table goes out unexpectedly — more than the usual draft — staff and long-term regulars attribute the event to Irma. The behavior is characterized as benign and even helpful: Irma is described as a friendly presence with particular interest in the tavern's continued operation.
A second figure associated with the building is Gowan Pamphlet, a formerly enslaved minister who conducted Baptist services in colonial Williamsburg — meetings that would have been held in secrecy given the period's restrictions on Black religious assembly. His presence has been reported in accounts documented by Colonial Ghosts, the licensed walking tour company that includes King's Arms Tavern on its Williamsburg route.
The Colonial Williamsburg ghost tour ecosystem — Colonial Ghosts, Williamsburg Ghost Tour, and others — regularly documents visitor and staff accounts from the restored historic district. King's Arms Tavern appears consistently in this body of reported experience.
Notable Entities
Dine on Colonial-inspired cuisine — including the tavern's famous peanut soup — in candlelit rooms along Duke of Gloucester Street, where genteel colonists gathered from 1772 onward. The upstairs room where Irma is believed to have died remains part of the building; extinguished candles at tables are attributed to her by staff and regulars alike.
Multiple ghost tour operators include King's Arms Tavern on their Williamsburg walking tours. Colonial Ghosts and other licensed operators pass the tavern during evening tours through the historic district, discussing Irma's story and documented paranormal accounts.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Milwaukee, WI
The building at 3129 N. Bremen Street is a turn-of-the-century triangular brick storefront sited where Bremen and another street meet at an angle in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood. It has variously served as a general store, a 1930s tavern called Ye Ol' Triangle Tap, and later Auggie's Triangle Tap — an Outlaws motorcycle-club hangout owned by August 'Auggie' Notbohm. Cafe Corazon, a Mexican restaurant founded by chef Dana Eckmann, took over the space in 2009.
Key West, FL
Captain Tony's Saloon at 428 Greene Street in Key West, Florida, occupies an 1851 building that has served as an ice house, the city morgue, a wireless telegraph station, and the original Sloppy Joe's Bar — where Ernest Hemingway drank between 1933 and 1937. The original hanging tree, where reportedly 75 executions took place in the colonial-era yard, still grows through the center of the barroom.
New Orleans, LA
Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop at 941 Bourbon Street in New Orleans is a French Colonial townhouse built between 1772 and 1791. The briquette-entre-poteaux structure is one of the oldest surviving buildings in the French Quarter and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970. It has operated as a bar since the 1940s.