The Oldest Restaurant in Every Country, Mapped

New trendy restaurants pop up all the time, but there’s something extra-special about sitting down in a place that’s been around for a century or two. St. Peter Stiftskulinarium in Salzburg, Austria, has been around for more than 12.

Founded in 803, it’s the oldest operating restaurant in the world, according to a survey by online lender NetCredit. The second oldest, Wurtskuchl (or Sausage Kitchen) in Regensburg, Germany, didn’t enter the global eatery scene until a few hundred years later, in 1146. Of the top 10, Europe boasts an impressive eight entries, including Scotland’s Sheep Heid Inn, France’s La Couronne, and Wales’s aptly named The Old House. The fourth-place finisher, Ma Yu Ching’s Bucket Chicken House in Kaifeng, China, opened its doors in 1153; and Japan’s Honke Owariya, which began as a confectionery shop in 1465 before shifting its focus to soba, is in the ninth spot.

The founders of Wales's "The Old House" must've known they'd end up on this map. | NetCredit

By comparison, North America’s oldest restaurants seem practically new. The longest-standing institution is Newport, Rhode Island’s White Horse Tavern, which a pirate named William Mayes founded in 1673. It quickly became the go-to venue for the city’s local government meetings, and it stayed in the Mayes family for the following two centuries.

Nearly 150 years after Mayes became a business owner, a hole-in-the-wall tamale shop with no name opened in Bogotá, Colombia, which locals began to call “La Puerta Falsa” after “the false door” set in the wall of a nearby cathedral. The name stuck, and the tiny restaurant now has the designation of being South America’s oldest.

If you go to La Puerta Falsa, you've got to get a tamale. | NetCredit

Since the study is based solely on internet searches, the data isn’t totally comprehensive. If the researchers were unable to find online evidence of a country’s oldest restaurant, they grayed out the country. Tunisia’s El M’Rabet is Africa’s oldest restaurant on this map, for example, but it could easily be younger than an eatery in Libya or Sudan that simply doesn’t have an online presence through websites or social media.

Chez Wou in Cameroon is best known for its ginger duck. | NetCredit

You can find out more about the survey here.