Haunted Brewery Ghost Accused of Stealing Knives, Refuses to Fill Out Health and Safety Forms
A New York brewery owner says his motion-activated kitchen camera caught a grinning white face and knives that disappear overnight. Management would like a word with whoever is on the night shift.
Satire This article is fiction. Any resemblance to sane reality is coincidental.
NEWBURGH, N.Y. — A brewery in the Hudson Valley is facing a staffing problem familiar to restaurants everywhere: someone on the night shift keeps moving the knives, and nobody will admit to it.
Paul Halayko, who owns Newburgh Brewing Company, told News 12 that his kitchen security camera has captured things he cannot explain. The footage, which dates to February 2024 when he installed a motion-activated camera, shows a white shape that appears to turn into a face.
“Kind of like a grimaced mouth right here,” Halayko told News 12, pointing at the shape. “Very creepy with the teeth, definitely see two eyes.”
The case of the missing knives
According to News 12, two other recordings captured flashes of light about 47 minutes apart overnight, when nobody was inside. Comparing the images, Halayko points to pots, a garbage pail, a tray and knives that seem to have moved or vanished. The recordings do not show the items actually moving.
“We’ve got two knives right there in the middle on the knife rack,” he said. “Now let’s go to the next photo — they are gone.”
The New York Post reports the footage also shows lights flickering while no one is around.
Our completely invented kitchen manager says the brewery has tried everything. “We put up a sign saying ‘Knives stay on the rack.’ We put up a rota. We even put up a sign saying ‘If you are a spirit, please sign in.’ Nothing,” she said. “It hasn’t clocked in once and it still thinks it can rearrange my bins.”
A building with a CV
News 12 reports the brewery’s building on South Colden Street dates to the 1850s. Before it made beer, it housed a steam engine operation, a yarn factory and the Newburgh Paper Box Company.
That gives the ghost, if there is one, a very long employment history. A fictional HR consultant brought in by The Daily Snark suggested the brewery treat it as a legacy employee. “It’s clearly been here longer than anyone else. It has institutional knowledge. It just needs onboarding,” he said. “Start with knife safety.”
Halayko also told News 12 that a brewery worker has reported seeing a man in overalls several times downstairs in the production area, and described the encounters as positive. Workplace experts agree that a co-worker who shows up regularly, works quietly and never asks for a raise is rarer than a ghost.
Not ruling anything out
Halayko shared the kitchen footage online to see what people thought, and says the response has been huge. He has no definitive explanation, he told News 12, but is not ruling out the paranormal.
“I’d be crazy to say it’s not possible,” he said, “because there are many things in this world that we don’t understand.”
With Halloween less than two weeks away, the brewery is now home to the most-watched kitchen camera in the Hudson Valley. Industry analysts say a seasonal “Ghost Shift” ale would practically market itself, provided someone can find a knife to open the boxes.
This is satire. The kitchen manager, the HR consultant, the signs and the “Ghost Shift” ale are invented. The footage, the owner’s quotes, the building’s history and the worker’s sightings are as reported by News 12 and the New York Post, linked above.