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Drink to your heart's content in Downtown Crossing
By adamg on Mon, 12/29/2014 - 9:03am
Craig Caplan's compiled the definitive guide to the watering holes of Downtown Crossing.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
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Comments
Please. Call me Cappy
It's going to be hard to be drunk and miserable if the weather stays 50 and sunny all winter though. Thanks Adam!
Thanks!
There are some ridiculously great suggestions in this that I didn't know about!
Delete all of those
Delete all of those (espically Beantown pub and regrettfully Stoddards now that they no longer do a bacon and brownbread) and just leave Foleys (don't tell the college kids though)
If you like Foley's but want more "dive"
Try Biddy Early's.
The place looks awful, but the women on the wait staff will call you "love" and the beer is cheap.
Agreed
One of a very few remaining downtown.
I miss the Blue Sands
I miss the Blue Sands.
And the Gateway on Knapp
And the Gateway on Knapp street , had a pool table or two.
Thanks, just went there for
Thanks, just went there for lunch. Loved how 'real' it is.
That would be the lovely Neve, most likely
A fine Irish lass.
Nice list Cappy, but I must say it's a little depressing not having the original, and lamented, Littlest Bar on the roster.
It was a sad day when they closed up shop.
Beantown itself is actually a great dive bar.
I wouldn't call it a tourist TRAP per-se, just a tourist hot spot. As noted in the post, the food is great, the prices are right, the staff is great, and pool! He also didn't mention the giant projection screen on the back wall.
The trick is to go on a weeknight in the tourism off-season. Weekends are indeed a nightmare year-round between tourists and being kind of a bro-haven, but I love spending random Tuesday nights there in January watching the Bruins and acting like I'm a good pool player.
Beantown hired my ex, that's
Beantown hired my ex, that's how I know they don't know what they're doing there.
Marliave
A DTX drinking guide without Marliave on the list? Its literally the oldest place in the neighborhood (and IMO one of the best, but I'm biased.)
I hear you
I know I probably should have included Marliave on the list but the truth is I have been in about three times since they reopened and didn't have that great of an experience. I didn't want to say anything negative so I just chalked it up to my not having enough exposure to the place.
Well, the name and the building are old,
but the current Marliave otherwise has little to do with the original, 19th-century Marliave. (By that standard, Stoddard's might be older, if you count its prior incarnations as a cutlery store and before that, a corset shop.)
That's not a bad thing; the old Marliave, before the owner of Beacon Hill's Grotto bought and renovated it six years ago, was dirty, decrepit, full of 90-year-old customers, and very sad.
I agree it should be included on the list, as it has two good bars, a noisier one with TVs and a quieter upstairs one without, and I quite like the food, a mix of American, French, and Italian food. Nice patio in better weather, too.
Well then
Maybe you and I should do some recon there so I can add it.
Cappy, there's a bunch on that list that you and I need to
investigate in DTX. I suggest a pretext of reporting: measuring noise levels, checking the fluid-oz consistency of whiskey pours, gauging who does the least perfunctory burger, etc.
So they drove out the
So they drove out the regulars? That is pretty sad.
Marliave?
The regulars all died of old age.
The bad old Marliave's regulars weren't driven away.
The place closed in 2006, seized by the Commonwealth for failure to pay its taxes. It sat vacant for a couple of years before Scott Herritt bought it, did a lovely renovation (stripping away 100 years of bad "upgrades", restoring much of its 19th-century look), and reopened it, initially as a very fancy, high-end spot (with truly bad timing in the wake of W's Great Recession), then recasting it in its current more-affordable mode.
I suppose if you miss the old Marliave, you can relive some of its rickety, mid-century mediocrity at places like the Mt. Vernon.
The Tam
These are mostly restaurants. The Tam is a bar. If you must eat you can get pizza next door.
Not DTX
That's the theater district.
Drinking Downtown
I haven't been drinking in downtown Boston in ages, but when I do I head to Coogan's on Milk St for $1 drafts of Budweiser to relive my wild youth.
What about the other 3-5%?
If you want a gay dive bar head on over to The Alley in PI Alley. But catch it before its gone. Its in the middle of a renovation.
Bar Naming 101: "Maybe you should check the Google."
The Boston Harbor Hotel recently added a swank patio bar that it also called the Alley. I wonder how many tourists have showed up at a DTX gay bar a few blocks away from their target and been mightily confused.
Silvertone
Hmm, well I certainly recommend the steak tips at Silvertone. Wash them down with a Dark ands Stormy. Good times!
You guys are right
I probably should add the Bear Bar and Marliave to the list.