It Happens Here: Worthen House Cafe Is All About History In Lowell
LOWELL (CBS) - One hundred years after his birth, famed author Jack Kerouac is still an important fixture in Lowell and at the bar where he once was a regular.
The Worthen House Cafe is all about it's history. It's everywhere you look. From the original fan system that still really works to the original tin ceiling showing its age. And of course, the secret spots to hide all the booze when things went dry.
"This is our prohibition panel. It looks like the rest of them but it opens up and shows you where they hid the alcohol during prohibition," bartender April Underwood told WBZ-TV.
The bar also has its own Kerouac shelf.
"We have his books and his bobble heads the Spinners did," Underwood said.
Built in 1834, this is Lowell's oldest bar. And here they embrace it all - even the ghosts.
"History has it that it's haunted. A 12-year-old boy fell out a window and it was tragic," part owner Paul Harvey told WBZ,
A picture of 12-year-old Matthew now hangs on the wall and soon the locked, and supposedly haunted, third floor will be renovated to welcome inquisitive guests as part of the whole "Worthen experience."
Paul Harvey runs the kitchen where even the menu gets into the spirit.
"I have an Edgar Allen Poe sandwich, Bette Davis sandwich." Harvey said.
A serving of unique city history, with a side of some serious charm.
"It's just a comfortable place, they sit down, they order the food, a drink and be merry as they say," Harvey said.
The Worthen House Cafe, once a popular Irish bar, opens early on St Patrick's Day at 8 a.m. The first 500 customers get a special button and collectors have been getting them for decades each year on the holiday.
For more information, visit their website.