The Historic Jacob Wirth Restaurant: A Boston Landmark

The Jacob Wirth Restaurant was a historic German-American restaurant and bar in Boston, Massachusetts, at 31-39 Stuart Street. The Greek Revival building housing the restaurant was constructed in 1844. The German-style restaurant was founded in 1868 and was the second oldest continuously operating restaurant in the city after the Union Oyster House. Jacob Wirth was the first distributor of Anheuser Busch products in Boston. The Wirth family and Anheuser family are from the same small town in Germany.

The restaurant was designated a Boston Landmark in 1977, with interior and exterior protections, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. In 2010, Chelsea developer AJ Simboli Real Estate purchased the property for $1.6 million.  It was put up for sale in January 2018 after having filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and closed following a fire in June of that year. As recently as October 2021, there was a restoration effort underway to repair fire damage and reopen the restaurant as it had been before its closure.

In March 2022, the building was purchased by Greater Boston Bar Co. for $5.27 million. Their initial hope was to reopen the restaurant by the end of 2022. The new owners planned to reopen the restaurant in early 2024. The building was badly damaged on June 25, 2024, in a large fire. Boston Fire Commissioner Paul Burke says the fire caused about $3 million worth of damage.