My Just Desserts – Ryder Building

My Just Desserts occupies the historic Simeon Ryder Building, a three-story commercial structure located at 31 East Broadway in Alton, Illinois, whose architectural heritage and historical significance extend far beyond its contemporary function as a dessert cafe and gathering space. The building was constructed in 1845, predating the Civil War by sixteen years and representing the era when Alton was emerging as a significant river town on the Mississippi, a commercial center whose location facilitated trade and whose position influenced American political development during the antebellum period. The Ryder Building's construction coincided with Alton's rise as a regional commercial center, and its solid masonry construction reflected the confidence in the town's continued prosperity. The building's architecture combines elements typical of mid-nineteenth-century commercial construction, with substantial load-bearing walls, large storefront windows, and upper floors designed for office or residential use. The building's location on East Broadway positioned it within Alton's primary commercial district, where merchants and professionals established their enterprises.

During the mid-nineteenth century, the Simeon Ryder Building served as a courthouse facility, hosting judicial proceedings and legal transactions central to the functioning of civic institutions in Alton and the surrounding region. The courtroom operations and legal business conducted within the building established it as a center of civic authority and institutional power, a location where disputes were adjudicated and justice was theoretically dispensed according to constitutional principles. The building's significance extended beyond local importance because of the notable individuals who conducted business within its walls, most prominently Abraham Lincoln, who frequently traveled to Alton during his legal practice and utilized the Ryder Building as a location for law practice and courtroom appearances. Lincoln's presence in the building during the 1850s, when he was developing his political reputation and beginning the intellectual and rhetorical work that would culminate in his presidency, created a historical connection that transformed the building into a location associated with American political history.

The basement level of the Simeon Ryder Building acquired particularly dark associations when it was repurposed to function as a morgue, a facility for storing and examining deceased bodies, a use that transformed the building's basement into a location saturated with death, grief, and the practical necessities of confronting human mortality. The morgue function created conditions of psychological heaviness and spiritual density, as the basement became a space dedicated to processing death and housing the physical remains of individuals whose lives had ended. The combination of the building's civic authority, legal proceedings, and death-processing functions created a multivalent spiritual landscape within the physical structure. When the building was converted to its contemporary function as a restaurant and cafe, the layer of commercial activity and social gathering was added atop the historical strata of legal authority and death management.

Paranormal phenomena at My Just Desserts have become sufficiently notable that the business has integrated them into its cultural identity and marketing strategy, utilizing the building's haunted reputation as a distinctive feature that attracts paranormal tourists and curious visitors. Employees and patrons have reported objects moving mysteriously throughout the dining room, with chairs observed sliding across floors despite absence of visible force or obvious explanation. The furniture displacement appears to occur most frequently in dining areas, suggesting poltergeist-type activity concentrated in spaces devoted to contemporary social gathering. Paranormal investigation groups have established a base of operations within the building, conducting regular investigations and utilizing ghost-hunting equipment to document anomalous phenomena.