Locke-Ober

History

The Greek Revival building housing Locke-Ober was erected in 1832. By 1862, the Boston City Directory recorded Adrien Destre operating a restaurant at 2 Winter Place, and by 1868 F.A. Blanc was listed as the proprietor. Luis Ober, born in 1837 in the French department of Alsace, moved to New York at age fourteen and worked as a barber, book seller, and importer-exporter before settling in Boston. While employed by Blanc, Ober learned about French food, fine wine, and furnishings.

By 1875 he had acquired the restaurant and, with financing from Eben Jordan of Jordan Marsh Company, expanded to 3-4 Winter Place, reopening as Ober's Restaurant Parisien. Over the next two decades the restaurant expanded, acquiring luxurious Gilded Age furnishings such as Honduran mahogany, French furniture, Italian and French sculpture and paintings, English silver, and Bohemian crystal lighting. Until 1967, the restaurant admitted males only. By the late twentieth century, Locke-Ober had lost much of its popularity.

In 2001, restaurateur Lydia Shire and investor Paul Licari leased the space, restoring the main and private dining rooms and adding two contemporary rooms; Jacky Robert served as executive chef until 2003. The restaurant closed in 2012, with plans to sell the building. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. The site now houses Yvonne's, described by the Boston Globe as a 'modern-day Locke-Ober'.

Cultural references

Locke-Ober appears in several works of fiction. In Gregory McDonald's 1976 novel Confess, Fletch, character I.M. Fletcher lunches there with editor Jack Saunders. The restaurant is the opening setting of Robert B. Parker's 1980 Spenser novel Looking for Rachel Wallace. It serves as the denouement location in Amanda Cross's 1981 Death in a Tenured Position. In the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, Professor Lambeau takes Robin Williams's character Sean to Locke-Ober. The restaurant is mentioned in the 1982 film The Verdict, and in episode 21 of the first season of St. Elsewhere. Charles McCarry's The Last Supper features Locke-Ober as the place where young Paul Christopher is invited to join 'The Outfit'.