The world's most famous coffee shop is just an hour outside of Boston. It's Miss Lizzie's Coffee in Fall River, Massachusetts...and the Lizzie of the title is Lizzie Borden. If the name doesn't sound familiar, she's the woman accused in 1892 of murdering her father and stepmother with a hatchet. She was found innocent after a trial, but since then, people have wondered if the jury dropped the ball and she was the one who viciously landed multiple blows to the Borden couple's heads. The cafe sits next door to the Lizzie Borden House, where you can tour the crime house and even spend the night.
But the coffee house space has its own haunted history. When it was a residence, Eliza Darling Borden lived there with her husband and children (she was a Borden by marriage, so not a blood relation, no pun intended, of Lizzie's). In 1848, she went to the cellar with her three children and pushed them into the well. Two drowned and one managed to survive. And Eliza slit her own throat. The ghosts of this horrific tragedy are said to be so strong that they even haunt the murder house next door. At the time of the Borden murders 44 years later, the house was owned by a Dr. Kelly, who was not consulted in the aftermath—but his maid had been talking over the fence to Lizzie's maid at the time of the stepmother's death.
The cafe, which opened this month (on August 4, the anniversary of the 1892 murders), enjoys a playful association with Lizzie Borden. A life-sized cardboard cutout of her greets visitors, as does a grim wall painting based on one of her photographs, and you can order "The Alibi." It's a pear/green tea with milk, whipped cream and cinnamon—those familiar with the case will remember that Lizzie claimed to be eating pears in the barn as one of her alibis (she had several, all conflicting). You can also order a Maplecroft, a maple latte, named for the grand home Lizzie and her sister bought with the death proceeds, and a Liz-presso (espresso with cinnamon and brown sugar).
Trouble may be "percolating" next door, as the owner of the Lizzie Borden House may take legal action against the cafe for a perceived violation of intellectual property by using the name "Lizzie," as reported by the Fall River Reporter. Perhaps in response, the coffee house's website reads, "Our ghosts are totally independent and not to be confused with any other ghosts!"