Photo courtesy of Rocket Fizz St. Petersburg
There is a magical place in the middle of Central Avenue and 6th Street. Spiderman peers out from the windows, and a large plastic shark glides through the front of the store. Shelves are filled with kitsch, candy, and soda. Customers can’t help but smile and purchase memorabilia from childhood, obscure items not found elsewhere, or even the occasional bacon-flavored soda.
Welcome to Rocket Fizz, where brightly colored lights and merchandise entertain the eye. During the day, customers wander through looking at squishies, plushies, meme-like signs, and other forms of nostalgia. At night, however, the store belongs to an entirely different crowd: specters of the past.
A Building With a Long Memory
It makes sense that the building is haunted. It was built in 1923, and that specific space has had many transitions in its 100-plus-year history. The building originally housed the Boca Ciega Realty Corp. office. The timing was good, as St. Petersburg was experiencing a building boom and that era was one of the most transformative for the city. In 1928, it became the Southern Office Equipment Company, which in 1929 became E.W. Heist, a vendor of cash registers.
Next, it was a luggage shop. Advertisements in the St. Petersburg Times highlight Simpson’s Luggage Company, which proudly sold genuine alligator skin handbags. In 1964, it was listed as belonging to Joe Pearson, who sold coins and other collectibles. From 1968 to 1974, it became one of three locations for Lewis Art Galleries. It was the Appliance Center from 1976 to 1984.
In the 1990s, it was known as “The Deli,” and an article from the St. Petersburg Times touted its special meals for Rays fans going to the games. In the 2000s, it was Uptons and seems to have connected with Daddy Cool Records located next door at 666 Central Ave. It was then Fubar, an incredibly popular place for the local music scene. When it closed in 2018, Rocket Fizz opened in 2019 and remains its current tenant.
From Gag Gifts to Rocket Fizz
Rocket Fizz is a franchise founded by Ryan Morgan and Robert Powells in Camarillo, California. It was designed with nostalgia and gag gifts in mind. As the pair worked toward opening their first store, they ran out of money. One man had already bought a pallet of plastic dog poop as one of the gag gift items for the store before the financial crunch hit. Sales of this gag gift funded the first store.
The franchise has since spread rapidly across the United States. There are more than 100 stores nationwide, with six in Florida. Currently, there are stores in Wesley Chapel, Orlando, Lakeland, Estero, Daytona Beach, and, of course, St. Petersburg.
Rocket Fizz team leader Cynthia Muscat has worked here since 2021. She loves the store and how customers always find what they want.
“I love this job as it’s something that reflects me and what I stand for,” she said, even with the odd happenings that occur after hours.
When the Store Closes
For our location, the range of manifestations and the customers who came through the area differ radically from one decade to the next. It is no wonder that such energy remains. The structure also houses the original hexagonal concrete floors and a rolling door from its original architecture. Items like this may boost older energies and allow them to stay longer.
“We’ve had a display fall over when no one was near it,” she said.
Another time, an employee working the register while Cynthia was in the back watched a candy bar fly off a display cart by itself. Items in a basket were also inexplicably found thrown onto the floor.
The SPIRITS team, a paranormal investigative group, heard mysterious sounds of falling items during their investigation. Yet, nothing is found out of order when these noises occur. The day after the investigation, Cynthia found two candies neatly placed on the floor in front of the toffee aisle.
A shooting occurred involving one of the prior business owners who once worked there, but it resulted in no fatalities and happened at another location. There are no recorded deaths on the property, either. So what is going on?
The First Investigation
The investigation provided some insight. During the first visit by the SPIRITS in June, we experienced significant activity. The thermal imager camera captured a warm column of air moving across one of the aisles, though this was not recorded on film. Sensitives detected activity in the store’s back right corner, and everyone in that area felt a strange throat dryness and the urge to cough.
The area near the register and behind the counter was also charged. Temperatures fluctuated there, and we captured a small EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) recording. The voice was female, but the message was too soft to decipher.
However, the spirit box session proved most beneficial. A spirit box is a modified radio designed to continuously scan the airwaves, providing both a white noise background for spirits to use for communication and the ability to manipulate radio waves to “speak.” The session in the back was most productive.
Multiple messages came through. Someone called for “Cindy,” which we later learned is a nickname for Cynthia, and made a notation of “candy” regarding the store’s current stock. However, overlaid on the radio noise were multiple calls to “help me” in a male voice. Another time, the name “Shawn” was stated. The same call for help shifted to “help us,” and the name “Shawn” was recorded during the recheck spirit session.
Are there ghosts at The Chattaway in St. Pete?
Who Was Shawn?
We discovered that when the area was the Fubar, that back spot was where the bar was located. Shawn may reference a long-time patron of the bar who loved the unique music that aired there. He died tragically and unexpectedly from natural causes while still a young man.
“I knew Shawn when he was alive,” Cynthia said. “I thought it might be him with us at the store. When something falls, we usually say ‘Shawn, that’s enough,’ and it stops.”
However, he was not the one asking for help. That remains a mystery.
The Mystery of Jim
One of the SPIRITS’ sensitives who came on the recheck believes the request for aid came from an older time, possibly related to the coin store/collectibles era. She felt as if a robbery might have taken place and the owner was somehow restrained during the crime.
The spirit box may substantiate that. At one point, we asked who was robbed, and it replied, “Jim,” and “it was stolen.”
To date, we have not yet found a historical account for this, but we will continue to search for documented records.
However, something else has happened: a descendant of the coin shop owner spoke to Cynthia while visiting the location. He told her that a robbery did occur at the location, and the person of interest was a shady character named Jim.
The Activity Continues
When we returned to recheck the spot in July, the activity continued, this time around the cash register. The area became bone-chillingly cold.
We asked the ghost if it was responsible for the cold by having it keep dropping the temperature a fraction of a degree at a time. It is a slow process that involves the investigator using an IR thermometer while asking, “Can you please drop the temperature from 69.8 to 69.6? Now 69.4?” Each time the temperature met the requested low, usually within about 15 seconds, we’d ask to go to the next drop.
At the end of the session, readings dropped from 71 degrees to 68. The air conditioning was off during that time.
The team’s thermal imager also caught an anomaly. At the second investigation, sensitives detected a few areas hosting energy vortices. These are small centers of paranormal energy that act as doorways to the supernatural. These centers were identified using soda bottles set on the floor tile below for documentation.
Later, using the imager, a blue orb appeared in one of the snapshots. It was the only image to capture this temperature anomaly, it did not show up in any video or other photograph. It was in the same location as one of the marked vortex centers.
A clipboard hung on a nail under the counter started to swing mysteriously — no one was near enough to bump or touch it, and the air current was too weak and too far away to impact it. Cynthia noted that it does not typically move on its own. It also swung for an abnormally long time – over four-and-a-half minutes – much of which was caught on video.
When the Ghosts Have the Store to Themselves
Another interesting interaction involved the ghost’s protective nature toward the store space. One person felt constantly ushered toward the door with the sensation that the store was closed — time to go.
Apparently, the living are welcome during the day, but the store belongs to the ghost at night. One must wonder what the ghost does while walking among the aisles filled with 500 unique sodas and odd candies from around the world.
The ghosts do not upset the store. As Cynthia noted, “Working here has been amazing. Having both the living and spirits at the store has been cool.”
“I want the living to know that you are safe in the store until closing, when our ghostly friends like to have a little time to themselves. As for Shawn, I play some of his favorite tunes by the local band Telekinetic Walrus, at night which always helps.”
Rocket Fizz is now a part of the St. Petersboo Haunted History Walking Tour. People may also check out the store at 658 Central Ave. Try some of the Pumpkin Pie soda, which is divine, and tell them that Brandy sent you!
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