David B.
Google
One November morning of 2025, I dropped by The Smoot Standard Cafe at 313 Mass Ave in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Darwin's Ltd used to be, to try out the new Cafe's atmosphere and food. It has a good vibe - reassuringly busy, yet seats were available. It was reasonably quiet, a mix of generations (including families with kids), and as expected a few students with laptops open (good Wi-Fi, plenty of outlets). The Smoot Standard Cafe is not far up Mass Ave from 77 Mass Ave - entrance to MIT's famed Infinite Corridor. And just further along Mass Ave is the Charles River and the Harvard Bridge, which displays a plaque of Ollie Smoot, whose height as an MIT freshman provides the "smoot" marks of progress all the way across the bridge to Boston.
On entry, I went to the order counter and chose the Smoot Breakfast Sandwich: Fried Egg, Cheddar, Black Pepper Mayo, Hash Brown (thin, crisp, yea!), on a Brioche. I chose Applewood Bacon (no charge) and could have chosen Taylor Ham, Chicken Sausage, or Avocado. The staff person gave me a number sign to take with me. I also took coffee with me.
I decided to take a seat at a counter which faces out onto the sidewalk and Mass Ave. The counter is obviously one of the bar service areas at night. So watching sidewalk activity through wine glasses and bottles gave an arty look to pedestrian strollers. The tasty, hot sandwich arrived shortly.
The coffee was good. The Smoot Breakfast Sandwich was hugely enjoyable and rich with taste and nicely crunchy texture. It was well constructed and substantial enough to last awhile in the company of coffee and enjoyment of the Cafe ambience. I used my iPhone to read up quite a bit on the Legend of the Smoot (some of which I'll include below, for those who wish to check it out).
Before leaving I visited the bathroom area. The area is sparkling clean. When finding it at the far end of the Cafe I noticed a nook (with student) and an upper level with seating and customers there enjoying the high view. I'll try that next time. (It would be hard to land the nook, given the number of students in the area.)
The legend of Ollie Smoot began with a simple fraternity initiation prank. Oliver R. Smoot, known to his fraternity brothers at Lambda Chi Alpha as "Ollie," arrived at MIT in 1958, standing exactly 5 feet 7 inches - the shortest pledge that year. It was this improvised measurement that would secure his place in history, making him, years later, arguably the most famous member of the MIT Class of 1962.
In October 1958, as a freshman pledge, Ollie was central to an initiation challenge that required him to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge (officially the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge) connecting Boston and Cambridge. The method was decidedly low-tech: his fraternity brothers repeatedly laid him end-to-end along the bridge's sidewalk, using him as a human ruler. The distance was marked with paint, a process that was no doubt laborious for poor Ollie. When the final tally was in, the bridge was declared to be 364.4 smoots long, plus one ear—a small correction for the very end of the measurement. One "smoot" was officially defined as Ollie's height at the time: 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 meters).
What started as a quirky fraternity stunt evolved into an enduring cultural landmark. The painted markings became a routine part of the bridge's landscape. Decades later, during major renovations in the 1980s, the markings were so well-known that the Cambridge police department requested they be restored. They had come to rely on the smoot marks as a convenient, albeit unofficial, way to specify locations in accident reports. To honor this unique tradition, the new sidewalks were even pre-scored at regular smoot-length intervals instead of the standard six feet, and a plaque now stands at one end of the bridge, commemorating the original event.
