America's 14 Oldest Taverns & Inns Slideshow

This inn has been welcoming guests since 1796, and had a prime spot on the road that led from Boston to Albany, N.Y. "For the first 100 years, the chef relied on the Inn's backyard population of chickens, cows, and the vegetable garden for the ingredients in each day's meals," according to their website. The building was completely refurbished and restored in 1985, and is today home to a bed-and-breakfast, a tavern, and restaurant.

Reputed to be the oldest tavern in Massachusetts, The Warren Tavern was one of the first buildings to go up after the town of Charlestown was sacked by the British in 1780. Today it's a full-service bar and restaurant, serving traditional bar food in about the most traditional bar setting in New England. 

The Griswold Inn (or "The Gris," as it's effectively known), is as old as the country itself, and is one of Essex's crown jewels. On the banks of the Connecticut River, this is one of the oldest continually operated inns in the country, and has long been a stop for travelers of both land and sea. The current dining room is best known for its old-style fare including chicken pot pie and sticky toffee pudding, and along with its tap room has been kept in pristine shape. Upstairs are 33 rooms, and no two are exactly alike. 

Anna and Silas Bingham opened The Red Lion Inn in 1773 as a general store and stagecoach stop, and it quickly became a center of village life, serving hot meals and providing shelter through the war. After the war, in 1786, Daniel Shays used the building as a meeting house to plan a protest against high taxes, which came to be known as Shays' Rebellion. The inn changed hands many times since, was heavily damaged in an 1897 fire, and was nearly demolished to make way for a gas station in 1968, but it was saved, restored, and still serves its original purpose. 

This sprawling Sturbridge landmark boasts a full-service inn, reception hall, and two restaurants, and the original dining room, dating from 1771, is currently the Tap Room. The room's centerpiece is a 6-foot open hearth, and everything from the post-and-beam ceiling to the wide plank floors is original to the building. 

The Beekman Arms is located in the heart of charming Rhinebeck, N.Y., and walking into the building, with its low ceilings, dark woods, and ample fireplaces, is really like stepping back in time. There are currently several separate dining rooms, including a sunlit patio, but the original room, now the Tap Room, remains largely unchanged since Colonial times. 

The oldest standing structure in the city of New York was constructed in 1719, and has housed a tavern on the ground floor since 1762, first called the King's Head. It's one of the most historic structures in all of New York City; not only is Fraunces Tavern one of the few surviving Colonial-era buildings downtown, a cannonball was shot through the roof in 1775, and its Long Room saw George Washington bid farewell to his officers in 1783. The upper floors currently house a museum, but its ground floor is currently home to several bars and restaurants, most notably the Tallmadge Room, in the space of the original tavern. 

This building was originally built as a tavern in 1760, and served that function until it was converted into a private residence in 1858. In 1998, the building was purchased by a couple who turned it into a bed-and-breakfast, and re-opened the tavern to the public. The building has been largely untouched by time since it was built, and most of its original fixtures and furnishings are still in place. 

The Cranbury Inn was originally not one but two separate taverns that were joined together. It was built in the mid-1750s (the exact date is unknown) and for most of its history it functioned as a place to eat, drink, and spend the night. It was expanded in the 1930s and the guest rooms were all converted into private dining spaces in the 1980s, and today it's home to several restaurants, private dining rooms, a bar, and a banquet hall. The bar is still housed in the space that was home to the oldest original tavern, and it's the oldest place to have a beer and a bite in the state of New Jersey. 

Originally constructed as a parsonage, this Cape Cod building was converted into an inn and tavern in 1746. Called the Fessenden Tavern, statesman Daniel Webster had a room there from 1815 to 1851, and it was renamed in his honor after his death. Today, the inn boasts 48 rooms, a spa, several restaurants, and a tavern in the same room where Webster would hold court, and locals would meet during the Revolution. 

The oldest operating inn in the United States was built as a two-room house in 1707, and in 1716 one of those rooms was converted into a tavern. In about 1750 the building was enlarged substantially into an inn, with enough space for eight lodgers, and it continues to operate as a hotel and restaurant, with nine bedrooms. None other than Henry Ford himself purchased the building in 1923 and turned it into a "living museum," which it remains to this day. The original 1716 tavern room is still in use.

Once Maryland's largest port, the quaint and charming town of Oxford is still a major center for boat-building and fishing. The town's centerpiece is the Robert Morris Inn, which was constructed in 1710 and went back and forth from private home to inn in the following years. There are three dining rooms on the ground floor (including the popular Salter's Tavern) and 14 bedrooms on the second and third floors; the Tap Room occupies the space that's been a dining room for about as long as the building has been in existence. 

The Old Yarmouth Inn claims to be the oldest inn on Cape Cod, and not many people have grounds to argue. Established in 1696 at the halfway point between Plymouth and Provincetown, it provided food and lodging to travelers. There's no lodging any more, but two dining rooms and a tavern still serve as a place for the weary to rest. The intimate Red Room dates all the way back to 1696, and is a spot where folks have been fed for well more than 300 years. 

The oldest dining room in America is in a building that was constructed as a private home in 1652 and converted into the White Horse Tavern 21 years later. It didn't just serve as a place to drink; it was a meeting house that served as the Newport colony's general assembly house, courthouse, and city council meeting place. In 1702 it was granted an official liquor license (even though that didn't stop innkeeper William Mayes from serving before that), and after the Revolutionary War it was enlarged with the addition of a gambrel roof.

It became a rooming house in 1895, and by the 1950s, the building was showing its age. The building was completely restored in 1957, though, and today it's one of the finest surviving examples of 17^th century Colonial Newport architecture, with clapboard walls, plain pediment doors, giant beams, and cavernous fireplaces. It's also home to one of the town's best restaurants, and amazingly has only had six owners in 340 years.