Check, Please!

Welcome to the Union Oyster House in downtown Boston, the oldest restaurant in the United States. In continuous operation since 1826, the famous eatery sits prominently along the shoulders of the Freedom Trail and resides in a building dating back to the 1700s where it originally served as a dry goods store. A façade of original, weathered brick, chocolate awnings and a trio of roof-mounted dormers combine to transport you back more than two centuries. Cobblestone sidewalks out front are contemporaries of the moody, low-slung wooden beamed ceilings inside. French king Louis Philippe once lived in exile on the second floor and Secretary of State Daniel Webster regularly dined solo at the bar feasting on precisely six plates of oysters and a glass or brandy in the mid-1840s. While the Union Oyster House remains the best stop in town to snag a dozen ice-embedded salt water bivalve mollusks, it’s also said to be the most haunted restaurant in America. The most notable ghostly resident is John F. Kennedy, interestingly enough, and is seen occasionally sitting bolt-upright at his favorite booth. So too a soldier dressed in colonial attire who roams the hallways on stormy nights, Ebenezer Hancock (a paymaster during the American Revolution), a fashionable French lady dressed to the nines (said to be a pupil of Louis Philippe who regularly tutored students) and Chef Henry whose presence is announced with flickering lights and malfunctioning electronics. So next time you’re up in Beantown, drop in for a pinch. Come for the scrod and things, stay for the legend and lore.