By 1879, Boston city records listed Luis Ober as the proprietor of a restaurant at there of "over twenty years' standing".

From the start, the restaurant specialized in French food and was central to the financial, political, and intellectual history of Boston.

At age fourteen he moved to New York, working as a barber, book seller, and importing and exporting goods between the United States and France.

Fletcher has lunch at Locke-Ober with newspaper editor Jack Saunders in the 1976 novel Confess, Fletch by Gregory McDonald.

It was also the restaurant that Professor Lambeau took Robin Williams' character, Sean, to in an attempt to convince him to work with the main protagonist in Good Will Hunting in 1997.

In 1982's "The Verdict" starring Paul Newman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Verdict), James Mason's character announces "we'll be at Locke-Ober's" in the scene where his law firm is prepping for its case.