Model Cafe
Bar · Allston ·
Dive bar with strong, cheap drinks, bar games & pizza
Dive bar with strong, cheap drinks, bar games & pizza
"The Model Cafe is one of Allston’s great dive bars. Musicians, artists, skateboarders, and locals occupy the space, sucking back very strong drinks and very cheap beers. The line on weekend nights gets long, so get there early. There’s a bit of food available, including bar pizza and hot dogs." - Nathan Tavares
"For about 60 years, the Model was an actual dive, a place where the bathroom was gross not because people thought gross bathrooms were edgy, but because cleaning up bathrooms sucks. Then people started lining up to ironically drink cheap beer, and they started scheduling everything from metal shows and slam poetry, to Robyn cover bands, even though it’s smaller than a two-bedroom apartment. Now it’s just where everyone in Boston goes to get sloppy, and you should embrace it for exactly that." - dan secatore
"The Model Cafe is one of Allston’s great dive bars. Musicians and artists and skateboarders and locals occupy the space in sublime concert, sucking back very strong drinks and very cheap beers. The line on weekend nights gets long, so get there early. There’s a bit of food available, including bar pizza and hot dogs." - Terrence Doyle, Rachel Leah Blumenthal, Erika Adams
"The Model Cafe is a several decades-old dive bar in Allston. In it’s latest iteration, it’s a place where a lot of students and Allston hipsters wait in line on Friday night to hear a DJ or the occasional metal band and drink cheap beer and get sloppy." - Dan Secatore
"There's always a line in front of the Model Cafe after 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, no matter the weather, and with good reason: it's one of Allston's best and oldest bars. Opened in 1932 by Greek immigrant Harry Anthony, it began as a three-shift bar (8 a.m. to 2 a.m.) serving factory workers from U.S. Steel, Ryerson Steel and Dorothy Muriel’s Bakery and truck drivers traveling North Beacon Street, and originally operated as a full-service restaurant—filets for 15 cents, fish caught that day, everything butchered in-house, and produce from Harry's backyard garden during the growing season. After the elder Anthony died in the mid-1960s his son George took over and shifted the menu toward modest fare like burgers (at one point, "for five bucks, you could eat and drink in here all night"); his grandson Harry was fired in 1972, spent nearly 40 years running other restaurants and nightclubs, then returned and has been at the helm for the past eight years. Over nearly 90 years and three generations of Anthonys the Model has continually adapted—today it's adopted by whoever lives here and is known for hipsters, artists, and musicians chugging cheap Miller High Life, dancing to '80s and '90s remixes and playing the World Cup '94 pinball machine; as Anthony says, "I love all these kids; they keep me young." - Terrence Doyle