Union Oyster House is a restaurant at 41–43 Union Street in Downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Open to diners since 1826, it is among the oldest operating restaurants in the United States and the oldest known to have been continuously operating. The building was listed as a National Historic Landmark on May 27, 2003.
History
The building itself was built before 1714, most likely in 1704. Before it became a restaurant, Hopestill Capen's dress goods business occupied the property. In 1771, printer Isaiah Thomas published his newspaper, The Massachusetts Spy, on the second floor. The restaurant originally opened as the Atwood & Bacon Oyster House on August 3, 1826.[2]
The Union Oyster House has had several famous people in history as regular diners, including the Kennedy family, John F. Kerry, and Daniel Webster.[3] Webster was known for regularly consuming at least six plates of oysters.[4] Perhaps most surprisingly, in 1796 Louis Philippe, King of the French from 1830 to 1848, lived in exile on the second floor.[5] He earned his living by teaching French to young women. Labor economist and president of Haverford CollegeJohn Royston Coleman worked here incognito as a "salad-and-sandwich man" for a time in the 1970s and documented the experience in his book The Blue Collar Journal.[6]
