As another adequately cooked steak makes its way from the kitchen to the tables filled with couples not afraid to spend $80 on 3-star food (Source: Yelp), line cook Darryl Robinson drops his sixth f-bomb of the shift that started a mere 45 minutes earlier. And Robinson is not alone in his frustration. With multiple reports of ghost sightings and strange noises, what he and other members of the Cheesecake Factory kitchen team at Fayette Mall are experiencing appears to be somewhat paranormal. The paranormal activity could be backlash from retailer Sears falling and the major restaurant chain rising up in its place all in the name of cheesecake, and pasta and 114 other items, all of which are chronicled in a menu the size of an actual Sears’ catalogue.
While Sears closed its doors in the Fayette Mall over two years ago, it seems not all former employees were ready to go, and their lingering presence is really starting to tick off Robinson and his factory workers. However, in the high stress world of fine dining, they never would’ve expected the stress to stem from dealings with supernatural activity during dinner rush and a constant flow of traffic in their kitchen from people trying to cut through to get to Sbarro.
“First off, how you gonna be the biggest store in a busy mall, make everyone walk through your store to get to the other stores, and still go outta business?” asked Darryl while ironically searing steaks. “And now, we gotta deal with a bunch of their old employee’s spirits or whatever, who are probably still gettin’ better benefits than me, moaning and howling back in our kitchen all night while we’re trying to do our jobs.”
According to Robinson and multiple other line cooks at the Cheesecake Factory, the Sears’ employees of mall past are trying to communicate with the cook team about all things Sears. Such as how they can open a Sears Card to save 10% on a $200 Craftsman belt sander or which way to go to get to the other side of the mall to shop at all the other stores that aren’t Sears. “I mean what kind of ghosts haunt hardworking line cooks like us, trying to get their jobs back? I’ll tell you who, a bunch of female ghosts. I mean male ghosts aren’t holding a grudge that long”.
“It’d be just like Sears to have crappy female ghosts handle their hauntings,“ says newly-hired cook Edgar Roebuck. “I think that, sure, the male ghosts of my youth were scary but these female ghosts are just annoying, to be honest.”
When asked how many times he had heard or seen the female ghosts, Roebuck replied, “I haven’t actually seen them yet but I can only imagine how terrible they are. Just from what everyone else has said. Female ghosts are not real ghosts, bro. Pretty sure Bill Murray would be rolling in his grave right now.”