HISTORY

In addition to being a fine restaurant, Jake Wirth’s is a legendary Boston institution.

Jacob Wirth came from a family of wine growers in Kreuznach, Prussia. He came to America and shortly thereafter, in 1868, he opened his restaurant. In 1878, he moved across the street, to where the restaurant still stands.

The dining room was made up of simple mahogany tables with a few large steins and bottles for decoration. The floor was covered with sawdust; the tables were bare.

The establishment’s most notable feature was its bar, a long mahogany structure well equipped to dispense draught beers. Above the bar, a Latin motto proclaimed SUUM CUIQCE, generally translated to mean “Each his own.” A clock and a portrait of the founder – in a circular medallion – added the finishing touches.

Along with several special dishes each day, the menu featured staples that included sausages, pig’s knuckles, boiled bacon, hams, cheeses and herrings. The customers included the rich and famous of the day. Boxing champion John L. Sullivan was among them. (Legend is that he suffered a rare knockdown when he was hit by a beer barrel rolling off a brewer’s wagon into the restaurant.)

Jacob Wirth died in 1892 and was succeeded by his son, a Harvard dropout who shared his father’s name. It flourished through the years, despite prohibition and anti-German sentiments of the two World Wars. Its clientele spanned society — truck drivers, athletes, scholars and celebrities shared the great mahogany bar and thrived on the menu that changed little over the years.

Today, much is the same at Jake Wirth’s. The sawdust is gone from the floor, a casualty of changing board of health regulations. The bar is as rich in draught beverages as ever. The menu has evolved with the times, but a regular from the nineteenth century would find familiar dishes, and the simple and sturdy tables, while now covered with tablecloths, still fill the dining room.

In 1975, the ownership of the restaurant passed to the Fitzgerald family. Ever mindful of their obligations as stewards of a Boston tradition, they respected the establishment’s now-unique ambience and even restored the exterior of the building to look exactly as it did when Jacob Wirth opened it. It is a fine modern restaurant with an authentic, well preserved past: for a meal before theater, a drink after work, or an excellent lunch or dinner anytime, Jake Wirth’s still offers happy times and “Each His Own.”