The Irish Legend

The house

Before it was The Irish Legend, this was O'Henry's Roadhouse — a 1920s speakeasy and bordello on Archer Avenue, across from the old Willowbrook Ballroom, with a walkway under the road for customers who preferred not to be seen. Chicago gangsters used the house. The story the floor still tells is a barman and a woman who belonged, on paper, to someone more dangerous; he was killed on the basement stairs, she in the rooms above. Staff and ghost-tour regulars still report fighting on the back stairs, a dining-room stain that does not stay gone, and a bathroom that locks from the inside with no one in it. Archer is already a haunted road. This is the table on it.

Irish pub food, a serious whiskey, and the patio if the waterfall is running. Sit inside if you came for the house. Willow Springs does not need a ticketed haunt. It has a pub.

The Ghostly Gourmet