The Incredible Stories of 25 Historic Restaurants Across America

Carlito’s is a soul food, Afro-Latino-owned restaurant housed in two restored Victorian-era buildings that date back to 1860 and 1874. The restaurant overlooks the Ohio River in a town with a rich history of African American culture. Owner Jeramie Alvarado’s restaurant feeds the homeless at Thanksgiving, has created scholarships for Black students, and sponsors kids for local programs. The restaurant also supports art and features works from local artists on its walls.

Recently celebrating its 100th birthday, the Cozy Inn Restaurant is the oldest Chinese restaurant in the state of Wisconsin, and is believed to be the one of the oldest in the U.S. Located in the West Milwaukee Historic District, the restaurant serves Cantonese and Hunan cuisine in its original location on the second floor of a 1922 building, whose steep stairs and original 1922 interior are just as distinctive as its food. The neon sign with the name Cozy Inn and Chop Suey has been a beacon for decades in Janesville.

There is new interest in the restaurant due to the documentary The Six, which tells the story of six Chinese men who survived the sinking of the Titanic, one of whom was the founder of the Cozy Inn.

This restaurant is located inside the oldest running hotel in Nevada. At 150 years old, it’s one of the few original structures left in Gold Hill, a former mining town where the Yellowjacket Mine disaster occurred in 1869. Gold Hill’s prosperity ran from the mid-1860s until the late 1880s and was the industrial center of the Comstock Lode.

This Mexican and American cuisine restaurant is a great example of the characteristic roadside architecture along Route 66. Its current owners, John Delgadillo and Cecilia Alvarado, are children of the founder Juan Delgadillo and grew up here along Route 66. Today, the restaurant continues their father’s legacy of showmanship with humorous menu choices including a “cheeseburger with cheese” and “dead chicken.”

Dating back to 1915, Far East is the oldest banquet-style Chinese restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The restaurant was started by influential Chinese American merchant Lim Fook Sing, who played a major role in helping to rebuild Chinatown after the 1906 Earthquake. The building’s interior includes original ornamentations imported from Canton in 1910 and its grand ballroom has been a popular destination place for hosting receptions, banquets, special events, and business meetings for both the Chinatown community and San Franciscans at large. The restaurant also provides opportunities to many new immigrants searching for a job and teaching them new skills. Owner Bill Lee continues to be an advocate for this community, in hopes to preserve its traditions and culture.

Chef Henry Brandon Williams and COO Kristel Williams are siblings and co-owners. They take pride in their Black-owned restaurant highlighting and celebrating the history of Black watermen who worked on fishing boats in the 19th century. FishScale has become an anchor in its community by providing healthy dining options connected to this history. The restaurant contributes to the vibrancy, vitality, and sustainability of Ward 1’s North Shaw area. This historically underserved business zone area was once considered a food desert.

Flesor’s is a classic soda shop, owned by the third generation of the Flesor family. Originally opened in 1904, the soda fountain, confectionary, and restaurant has been revived by the founder’s granddaughters, making Flesor’s one of the few remaining working soda fountains in the country. They have also continued the tradition of making candy, ice cream, food, and maintaining the original recipes handed down over three generations. With many original fixtures, it looks much like it did when their grandfather owned it.

Housed in a historic railroad freight building built in 1868, the Freighthouse Restaurant opened in 2004. Owners Eric and Cathleen Paris are third-generation Vermont dairy farmers. They serve locally grown foods, including grass-fed organic beef from their farm. These practices are part of their effort to sustain the traditions of local farming and keeping the rural economy and landscape alive and vibrant.

Gather55 is an inclusive restaurant owned and operated by non-profit Hands on Hartford, an organization that serves Hartford’s most economically-challenged residents with food, housing and health. The restaurant incorporates pay-what-you-can community meals for both low-income residents and the paying public. It’s located in the historic Parkville neighborhood and within the historic former Hartford Rubber Works. The Parkville neighborhood population is diverse, and as a result, the restaurant cuisine varies, reflecting both the cuisines and heritages of the chefs and the neighborhood.

This soul food restaurant is run by Harold Thomas Jr., along with his wife Jacqueline and son Harold III. Together, they opened it in 2003, after Harold Jr.’s father passed away. While much in their South Richmond community may have changed over the past 40 years, this restaurant’s service and food has delivered the same consistent quality, with a menu that serves fried chicken, fish, pork chops, ribs, and other foods associated with Sunday Dinner.

Hatcha’s is the longest established restaurant within this community and one of the few historic structures left in town. It has been in the current family for over 50 years, and its cuisine connects directly to the history and culture of Northern New Mexico, with dishes including green chile enchiladas, homemade sopapillas, and chicharron burritos with red chile.

The Holly Hotel is a National Register-listed 1892 railroad hotel that was damaged by a major fire in June 2022. The hotel is currently undergoing restoration set to be complete by October 2023. It is also a critically acclaimed and award-winning restaurant. Since 1891, the Holly Hotel has been the center of activity and hub of every important social and civic event for the town. As the host of numerous festivals, the Holly Hotel has a following of more than 93,000 regular clients who subscribe to its monthly newsletters and emails.

Note: Its Backing Small Historic Restaurants application generated a huge public response, with over 700 public nominations.

The Hungarian Pastry Shop was founded in 1961 when Morningside Heights had a thriving Hungarian and Czech immigrant community. While the neighborhood has changed, the Pastry Shop has remained as a cultural institution. In the mid 1990s, the owners decided to frame several books that had been written in the shop to honor the creative achievements of its patrons. It now features more than 100 book covers adorning the walls. The owners are deeply proud of the shop’s history in the neighborhood and the role it has played in the community.

This hot dog stand has served the community of Portage Park for more than 40 years. Current owner Barbara Vrettos assumed the helm when her father passed away unexpectedly in 2021. In the face of much development around the stand, customers frequently reach out to thank Barbara for continuing to run this community icon and to serve hot dogs and Polish sausage, Chicago-style.

The “Victory Diner” has been an area landmark for 90 years. The current owners brought barbecue to the diner five years ago, and in 2020, the restaurant was awarded “#1 BBQ in Rhode Island” by Food & Wine Magazine. The restaurant also goes mobile as it presents at various pop up events like the Burrillville Arts Festival, car shows, and family events in the town neighborhoods. The restaurant also gives back to the community through fundraising efforts, sponsoring sports teams, gift card donations and fundraisers for the local Backpack Program.

Built as a bank in 1907, this building sat empty for 20 years before it opened in 2001 as Kelly’s Gingernut Pub. It features local goods like oysters, asparagus, and spirits from the local distillery. Since reopening, the restaurant has again become a downtown cornerstone of this community.

Originally founded by D.L. and Irma Lindsey in 1956, Lindsey’s Hospitality House is a Black and woman-owned business that serves some of the best barbecue in Central Arkansas. They have long been regarded as an anchor of the local community in Little Rock and provide on-the-job training to youth in the area.

Mitla Cafe was founded by Lucia Montaño Rodriguez in 1937, and today is run by her grandson and great-grandson. Its location on historic Route 66 meant that it helped bring Mexican culture to the masses, including road-weary travelers bound for Los Angeles. In the 1950s the founders mentored and inspired another local restaurateur, Glen Bell, to create his own version of Mitla Cafe’s popular hard-shell tacos. After opening Taco Tia, Bell found more success with his next venture, the eponymous Taco Bell.

This is the oldest continuously run family-owned Chinese restaurant in the country. The restaurant was founded in its current location in 1911 by Hum Yow and Tam Kwong Yee. When the restaurant first opened, it served a diverse clientele of miners, theatergoers, and wealthy citizens. Then, as now, the menu featured Chinese American classics like chow mein, chop suey, and egg foo young. The dining tables and chairs in each room date back to 1916. Today, it is run by Jerry Tam, great grandson of its original owner, and it represents one of the last surviving properties from the original Chinatown neighborhood.

The Pentagoet Inn & Pub is a central part of Castine, the oldest settlement in Maine, which dates back to 1613. The Inn itself was built in 1894, when the area was popular with “rusticators” looking to escape the urban areas of the Northeast. It is Castine’s original and oldest summer hotel, and the town’s longest continually operating restaurant. In 2022, Robert “Matt” Powell and George Trinovitch took over the property and are working to fully restore the building.

This commercial brick building built between 1884 and 1888 is now home to Radius, a brewery founded by three friends looking to revitalize their downtown. They have also established a group of downtown businesses that get together to host events and support each other. Together, they provide an example of what motivated members of a community can do to be contributing members of a downtown.

The SnoCap Drive-In, founded in 1964, represents the classic American drive-in, serving burgers, hot dogs, fries, and shakes. Over the past six years, the father and son owners have brought it back to the 1950s and 1960s. The restaurant is also very community-focused, featuring two car shows per month, and supporting multiple North Augusta community programs.

Local resident Sean Coogan is currently restoring one of this town’s oldest and largest buildings, which dates back to the early 1900s. His restoration of Social Coffeehouse and Speakeasy includes the second-floor duckpin bowling alley that hasn’t been in operation since the 1970s. Social Coffeehouse has become the anchor in this small town by providing a meeting place for locals to enjoy locally roasted coffee and fresh baked from scratch pastries.

The Treehouse opened in 1991 and was built by artists and craftsmen from Cleveland. The chairs, tables, bar, and decor are all hand-made and one-of-a-kind originals specific to the Treehouse. The restaurant has been an integral part of the revitalization of the Tremont neighborhood since the 1990s. Serving American and Irish pub food, it was one of the first local restaurants to put money back into the neighborhood, with a special focus on helping artists in the neighborhood get exposure for their art. Now, every month it spotlights local artists who display and sell their art.

The U-Drop Inn is a distinctive Art Deco-style gas station, built in 1936 when Route 66 was still a dirt road. During its prime, the U-Drop hosted many famous visitors, including Elvis Presley. But over the years, the U-Drop Inn fell into disrepair, which motivated a group of local citizens to save the building from demolition.