Children, grownups have Halloween fun at Sarah’s Cafe

Sun, 10/29/2017 - 7:00am

    At Sarah’s Cafe in Wiscasset Saturday night, patron Sharon Jacques of Wiscasset was a border patrol officer handing out tickets. She said she gave one to bar manager Greg McAllister for bad dancing.

    McAllister confirmed in an interview, he was wrongly accused.

    Halloween at Sarah’s is his favorite night of the year at the Water Street restaurant, due to the fun and all the longtime business does to make it happen. “Sarah’s goes all out with this,” he said. This year’s event had a haunted hallway for children and other party activities for their parents and other adults, many who, like Jacques, wore costumes.

    Chriscinda Park of Wiscasset and daughter Kelli Park of Harpswell attend every year. Saturday night, mother and daughter were a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and Anne of Green Gables, respectively. Kelli read the book series as a child. The two women were sitting at the bar near a chair that held a zombie, one of multiple props and decorations inside and outside the business. Others inside included cobwebs and, near the black curtain leading to the haunted hallway, a doll with orange, flashing eyes.

    Madeline Rice, 8, of Georgetown, who described her costume as a dead bride, visited with other children near the hallway then returned to her parents Jon, as Captain Hook, and Kristen, as a cat, Rice’s table for more of her burger. The family also had a loaded veggie pizza. It was their first time at the restaurant’s Halloween party. Jon wore a costume he made a couple of years ago.

    Matt Norris, son of owner Sarah Heald, said Sarah’s does the annual event so people can enjoy the freedom and fantasy of Halloween, and pay homage to Wiscasset’s ghostly tales and the fact the building’s bottom floor was a morgue in the 1800s. Those who work at the restaurant have witnessed mysterious things early in the morning, added Norris, in a mask and costume that transformed him into a long ago cook for the evening.

    Martin and Jeanne Inerfield of Selden, New York, dressed as themselves, did not know they were in for a Halloween treat when they stopped in for dinner. Martin, an accountant, comes to Maine on business and has been to Sarah’s Cafe so many times, now when he’s in Wiscasset, his car takes itself there, he said. His wife hadn’t decided yet what she was having. He planned on the lobster roll.