El Paso Restaurant to be featured Wednesday on SyFy’s ‘Paranormal Witness’

Would you dine at a restaurant built on sacred spiritual ground? How about a restaurant where ghosts sneak up on patrons? I ask because such a place exists here in El Paso. If you’ve ever looked to your right while driving west on I-10 just past the old Pat Goff’s building you’ve no doubt noticed a building with the 18 wheeler facade and the huge grizzled looking mobster's face staring back at you. That building is home to Monteleone's Ristorante, known as much for its authentic Italian food and Chicago gangster theme as it is for its reputation as one of the most haunted places in the city.

Haunted enough that the SyFy channel documentary-drama series Paranormal Witness, which “brings to life the true stories of people who have lived through explanation-defying paranormal experiences" will feature the restaurant on its newest episode this Wednesday. From day one, when owners Gary and Laura Monteleone began renovating the property at 3023 Gateway West, reports of supernatural activity began to surface. But things really amped up some years later, Gary said in a 2010 interview with El Paso Inc, when they expanded into the adjacent building and he found -- and moved -- a 1922 charter for the Texas Spiritualist Association church under the floorboards.

The episode spotlighting “intimate first-hand testimony, personal photos and real footage” of the restaurant airs at 8 p.m. Mountain Time this Wednesday on SyFy. Watch a couple of sneak peeks below.