Drinking with ghosts: The life of Bristol’s 343-year-old King George II Inn
The restaurant and tavern is in a quickly growing town in Bucks County.

Much of the history of the King George II Inn in Bristol can be attributed to local lore. There are the stories about Martha Washington staying in one of the rooms and George Washington’s troops drinking at the inn’s bar just days before they crossed the Delaware and attacked the Hessian forces in Trenton on Dec. 26, 1776.
There are tales about the constables who threw drunken revelers into the basement jail in the 1700s, and stories that John and Abigail Adams were big fans of the spot, perched alongside the Delaware River.
In the past 343 years of the inn’s existence, the details of these stories have become muddied, but there’s one thing that patrons can be sure of, one of the owners said: When you come to the inn, you’ll be drinking with ghosts.

“I’ve seen some things — knock on doors, door openings, this one swinging door open and close,” Bruce Lowe, one of the inn’s three owners, said while sitting at a table across from the wooden bar built in the 1700s. “We had empty liquor bottles at the end of the bar — one of them went six feet straight across into the wall. And if I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t believe it.”
Rob Strasser, another owner, isn’t as sure they’re among ghosts; still, he’ll never turn down a good story about the paranormal.
“Over the years, there’s been rumors, or folklore suggests there’s been ghosts here — a baby crying on the third or fourth floor, a tap on the head, a guy with a top hat upstairs,” Strasser said.
Strasser and Lowe, both of whom grew up in New Jersey, purchased the King George II Inn close to a decade ago after falling in love with its history and Bristol, a town of about 10,000 people in Bucks County. Fabian Quiros, the establishment’s executive chef, later became the third owner.
Opened as the Ferry House in 1681 by Samuel Clift, who operated a ferry between Bristol and New Jersey, the inn is believed to be the oldest bar in Pennsylvania, according to Anne Ryan, the deputy secretary of tourism for the state Department of Community and Economic Development.
Since its establishment almost a full century before the Revolutionary War, the inn has gone through a number of changes but has consistently remained a place where people can gather, eat, imbibe, and sleep. The four-story building is now home to 14 tenants, including two people who have lived there for more than 20 years, Lowe said.

In its early years, the business would provide warm meals and a place to stay for those emerging from the ferry that traversed the Delaware River from Burlington, New Jersey, and ran for about 250 years until it ended services in 1931, as well as people traveling by stagecoach along the King’s Highway between Philadelphia and New York. Remnants of these centuries of history can still be found in the inn. Wooden bars from the time the basement served as a jail stand in what’s now the wine cellar, and the original foundation built from Delaware River stone remains.
These days, the inn’s main draw is less it being a stopping point along the King’s Highway and more that it’s a restaurant and bar in a town that’s growing after a good chunk of its small businesses shuttered during the earlier days of the pandemic, Lowe said.
“Bristol’s a happening place now — restaurants opening up and mom-and-pop stores opening up on Mill Street after COVID,” Lowe said.
It’s not just the pandemic that caused Bristol to struggle. Once a manufacturing hub, Bristol’s major industries shuttered decades ago. The job losses left the town’s residents financially vulnerable during the economic recessions in the 1970s and 1980s, and Bristol was also hit hard by the more recent economic recession that began in 2007.
The economic landscape is shifting, however, and the town has undergone significant change over the past seven years, with a $3 million public docks project and the town winning $500,000 from the Deluxe Corporation’s Small Business Revolution competition in 2017.

“It’s amazing how many businesses are on Mill Street now,” Lorraine Meredith, a server who has worked at the inn for almost 24 years, said of the community’s main commercial area.
The inn’s owners and employees are thrilled with the growth. It translates to more patrons at the inn, but, even more important, Bristol is their home, and they want others to love it as much as they do.
“Bristol is definitely coming into its own,” said Aidan White, a 21-year-old server who has worked at the inn since he was 14. “We’ve had artistic movements and small businesses popping up, and it really feels alive. Each year more and more people are coming in from out of Bristol.”
“The arts are very much alive in Bristol,” White continued, pointing out the renovations taking place at the Bristol Riverside Theatre, located down the street from the inn. “And that’s one thing I love about this small little town, unassuming but so full of life and culture.”
As for the inn itself, the owners and employees hope it will be here for another three-and-a-half centuries. But for now, they’re enjoying the food, the drinks and, yes, the ghosts.