In 1771, printer Isaiah Thomas published his newspaper, The Massachusetts Spy, on the second floor.

The restaurant originally opened as the Atwood & Bacon Oyster House on August 3, 1826.

[2] The Union Oyster House has had several famous people in history as regular diners, including the Kennedy family, John F. Kerry, and Daniel Webster.

Labor economist and president of Haverford College John Royston Coleman worked here incognito as a "salad-and-sandwich man" for a time in the 1970s and documented the experience in his book The Blue Collar Journal.

[6] The menu is traditional New England fare, including seafoods such as oysters, clams, and lobsters, as well as poultry, baked beans, steak and chops.