By: Sentry Marketing Group

August 3, 2015

The recent loss of one of the oldest restaurants here in Dallas has us asking the question – where did restaurants come from and what are the oldest ones still around? See what we found out!

This past weekend, Dallas, the home of Sentry Marketing Group’s headquarters, lost its oldest restaurant, Vincent’s Seafood, which opened downtown just before the turn of the 19^th century and closed in one of the northern suburbs almost 120 years later.  Though it remained open in its original location for its first 70 years, the next fifty saw new locations open and close throughout the city and suburbs as the Metroplex grew and changed.  The little street the original restaurant was on is now the drive-thru of a McDonald’s.

 

The memories (and the line) are overflowing today at Vincent’s Seafood. After 117 years, it’s closing. @CBSDFW pic.twitter.com/xtKxtbMFJI

— Jennifer Lindgren (@JLindgrenCBS11) July 28, 2015

This little history of an old place near and dear to us got us to thinking of the larger history of places like it and how it is that human beings around the world have come to enjoy meals together outside of the home.  How long has this been going on?  Where did it start?  And where have restaurants been operating the longest?

The Beginning of Eating Out

It is widely accepted in the restauranting world that the first such establishments to emerge as we know them did so in Paris around the time of the Revolution.  According to a document from the UNLV digital collection,

But our understanding of restaurant in these modern times would probably extend to include even those taverns that served meals at certain times of day.  After all, these days the most exclusive restaurants may serve only from 11-3 or may offer only a set menu during the dinner hour.  The function of these practices may be different now, but the fundamental function remains the same – a restaurant is a place to get a meal when you don’t want to or can’t make one at home.

So let’s go back a bit further.  Or a lot further.  A few years ago, the History channel published an article, “Restaurants, B.C.E. (Before the Contemporary Eatery)”—cute, right?—that looked into the phenomena we’re really interested in – when did people start eating food they did not prepare as a matter of convenience and/ or social practice?  According to the article, a long, long time ago:

That sounds a little more like the falafel joint on the corner.

Thermopolium photo by Dave & Margie Hill / Kleerup from Centennial, CO, USA, via Wikimedia Commons  [CC BY-SA 2.0]

But what about something more like, say, the Olive Garden?  Well, its predecessor was really a little more like Panda Express.  Way back in the 1120s, Hangzhou, a city in what would later become China, was the seat of the Southern Song Dyansty.  Like Chinese cities today, it housed a lot of people—like, more than a million.  And, as is the case in urban centers today, many of those people had neither the time nor the desire to cook their own meals.  So, they would grab a little roast pork or noodle soup along the Imperial Way en route to taking care of whatever important business they were getting to (or away from).  So how is that different from a thermopolium, you ask?  Well, at these little street-side establishments, folks could choose what they wanted to eat from the now indispensable menu and the cook would whip it up.

The Oldest Restaurants

Alright.  So we know that we, as a humanity, have been eating out for centuries, millennia even.  But, aside from pop-up food shops and built-in-stone hot pots, where have we been eating?  And are any of those places still around?  Sadly, there is no thermopolium handed down through generations…and generations…and generations still standing on the streets of Rome.  However, there are some pretty old restaurants out there, and here are a few of the most impressive.

St. Peter Stiftskeller, Salzburg, Austria. Est. 803

That’s right.  This proper, sit-down restaurant has been serving food for money for more than 1200 years.  It started in typical European eatery style – as an Inn that served food to hungry travelers.  What is remarkable is that it has managed to do so continuously ever since.  Of course, these days, it serves the food of gourmet chefs to the elite of society, most famously to the accompaniment of live classical music.  So, in a sense, the inn-turned-fancy-restaurant encapsulates in its own history the history of eating out on the continent and may be the oldest restaurant in the world.

 

So what about here in the States?

White Horse Tavern, Newport, Rhode Island. Est. 1673

Like its European counterpart, the White Horse Tavern started out as a place for regular folk to go and get some grub but has since become a fine dining establishment.  Still operating out of its original Colonial location, the White Horse specializes in fresh seafoods from Narragansett Bay—a staple of its menu since the beginning.  While its 350 years doesn’t exactly compare with the St. Peter’s 1200, we think it impressive enough that the restaurant predates the country it serves.

Curious about the oldest restaurant in your state?  Check out this list of the oldest restaurants in each state from thrillist.com.

Tower of St. Peter photo by Andreas Praefcke (Own work) [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

White Horse Tavern photo by Swampyank at en.wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons