There’s something a bit spooky about the eggs at Frank’s Suffolk Diner.
And the bacon has always seemed a little unsettled.
All joking aside, owners of the popular diner on Furlong Drive hosted a paranormal investigation group, RTS Paranormal, last Saturday evening to finally get to the bottom of decades of folklore, odd sightings and frightening hauntings that have occurred at the classic, circa-1937, diner.
Co-Owner Carolina Guerrero said since she re-opened the diner about 18 months ago, strange things have taken place.
She has a laundry list of odd occurrences, such as shutting down all the equipment the night before, and then coming in the next day to have the oven on full blast.
“Even the police have noted that something isn’t quite right,†she said. “We’ve had the alarm company call them for an intruder and they respond and no one is there. That’s happened a lot and there’s no explanation. There was a time I was in there alone and the bathroom door slammed shut. I thought someone had snuck in on me, and I ran out of there and called the police. They came in and looked in the bathroom and all around and there was no one. Sometimes you just wonder; the place has been around since 1937.
“Many of our long-time customers say we have a ghost and her name is ‘Pete,’†added Guerrero. “I guess she was the original owner’s mother and she worked here and was 92 years old. She and her son used to get in big arguments in front of everyone. People say the reason it’s haunted is that they’re still arguing. You just learn to ignore it and you don’t hear it during the day when everyone’s here. Maybe there are real explanations for it all. We just joke about it.â€
One person who didn’t think it was a joke was a former employee named Luis, who was doing some work in the basement – where the hauntings occur the most.
“The former employee, Luis, was at our investigation and gave us some insight about what he had experienced,†said Gerry Rowinsky, leader of RTS Paranormal, the small non-profit group that did Saturday’s investigation. “He had seen her dead on – a full apparition – in the basement bending over and looking for something. Others had never seen anything like that, but they had come in one time and found the burners and the oven going full blast when they knew everything had been turned off.â€
Other RTS members Andrew Tocci, James Tower, Rich Bartlett, Murdock Macaskill, Becky Morganelli and Aly Morganelli joined Rowinsky. The event even attracted visitors such as Mayor Dan Rizzo and Assessor John Verrengia.
The group has done numerous investigations since forming in 2000, and Rowinsky said they look into claims of paranormal activity “professionally and objectively.â€
After conducting their investigation, Rowinsky said they found a few things that definitely warrant further study.
“We did find a couple of things that were anomalous and we’ll definitely need to review all of our evidence and recordings,†he said. “For example, one of our investigators saw what she thought was a shadow figure behind another investigator. At the same time she mentioned it, all of our equipment shut down. It could have been a coincidence. We approach things in a scientific way – we try to disprove things rather than prove them. We will certainly review our evidence and see if anything was caught on camera or if of our EVP recordings had voices at that moment.â€
Another incident was when an investigator said he felt something pushing on his pocket. Then he said that he felt something pushing very hard on the keys in his pocket.
“He felt a big push on the keys in his pocket and then the remote starter was pushed and his car outside started up,†said Rowinsky. “That’s never happened before. Then again, we expect the unexpected.â€
Another incident was when they took the temperature of the stools in the diner. As they did so, the temperature on two of the stools kept cooling down and heating up.
“It’s like something was moving from stool to stool and changing the temperature, but we’ll see,†he said.
Rowinsky said they will be particularly interested in seeing what is on the recordings when they tried to lure out anyone by the name of “Pete.â€
“We did use names during the investigation to try to entice any entity to interact with us if it’s there,†he said. “When we go through the evidence, we’ll be paying attention to that. We also used a person who is sensitive (to the paranormal) and he told us we would definitely be finding a lot of voices when we sifted through all of the evidence.â€
Rowinsky said that once they go through everything and catalogue it, they would be meeting with Guerrero to discuss what was found.
“There’s a lot of energy in this place, and it will be interesting to see what that’s all about, if anything,â€
Cutline –
Frank’s Suffolk Diner Owner Carolina Guerrero, along with Mayor Dan Rizzo and Assessor John Verrengia just before members of RTS Paranormal conducted an investigation on the classic diner. For some time, stories have circulated about hauntings in the diner, and Guerrero said they’ve experienced some oddities since opening last year.