A Eulogy for the Pour House, Which is (Now) Dead
It’s an inevitability that cities will change.
This evolution — for better or worse — is a key ingredient to the magic that draws us into cities. It’s what brought me to Boston 20 years ago. I’ve now been here long enough where the pace of this evolution feels somewhat familiar.
But the COVID-19 pandemic has functioned as an urban Thanos, removing pieces of the city that I love in one snap of a bungled pandemic response.
And the one that really hurts is the rumored closure of the Pour House. (Ed. note: Scott Isaacs tweets that a source tells him the bar is working out its reopening plan, so, fingers crossed. But, my larger point stands. Ed. note, September 3: The Pour House confirms it’s closed.)
The Pour House is a Boston institution, but not in the “poor to middling clam chowder served in a room with colonial decor” sense. According to its Facebook page, the Pour House opened in 1986. And it feels like a space that’s been well-loved by generations of 20-somethings.
Vintage beer trays hang upside-down from the air vents. The walls are spray-painted. Tiffany-style lights dangle over the booths where groups of diners huddle around tables, which are hand-painted with the artwork from popular beer labels. The edges of everything are worn. All of the surfaces are slightly sticky.
The Pour House doesn’t have a hyperlocal focus on its draft list. The best thing about the food is the uncanny balance between quality, price, and portion that makes me as happy now as it did in my early 20s as a broke college kid. (Especially on half-price Mexican night.) I know not to ask where the lettuce on my Vesuvius-sized pile of nachos came from, because I know it was a Sysco truck.
The Pour House is one of the few Boston spots left where you can drop your pretentious bullshit at the door and just enjoy some solid food and generous pours of mid-market beers.
I’m old enough to have dozens of Pour House memories seared into my brain, which makes its rumored demise sting more. My first experiences there were what I hoped were dates with one of those super-creative Emerson boys. (Reader, they were not dates.)
The Pour House became the bar of choice on Marathon Monday for my friends and I. For the past several years, we’ve been at the door well before 7AM to grab the coveted front table, which has two large tables and, if you perch on your knees in the booth, an obstructed view of the Marathon course. We run up a tab well over $1,000 every time. We tipped the efficient staff generously.
We came back with tears in our eyes for the 2014 Boston Marathon. We were especially grateful for the sticky tables and mimosas in plastic cups that year.
I met my friend’s now-husband for the first time in a booth in the basement. I celebrated a friend’s 40th there last summer. And on. And on. And on.
Hopefully, the rumored closure of the Pour House will turn out to be just that — a rumor of a death, greatly exaggerated. I hope the owners will confirm they plan to offer some form of take-out, or they’ve started a GoFundMe to support their staff and pay their bills now that Washington has, to date, failed to continue expanded unemployment benefits in the midst of a historic pandemic.
But as the cases begin to spike even before the cold weather sets in, federal, state, and local leaders continue to drag their feet on even discussing the idea of a meaningful bailout for the restaurant industry. As a result, these beloved institutions will vanish.
One of the worst things about the COVID-19 effect on restaurants is there’s no time to go in and say goodbye. In the typical gentrification closure (which is a problem for another post), there’s usually a few weeks or a month to get in that last reservation or visit to enjoy the magic one last time. With the pandemic, the windows are boarded up without fanfare. The For Lease sign goes up. And, in some cases, it stays for nearly a decade.
When the spaces are replaced, they will not be replaced by things that contain the essence of their specific city. The Sweetgreens and Chipotles and Capital One banks with coffee shops will be the only places that can sate a landlords’ increasingly absurd demands for higher rent.
They will have decor selected by pickers to reflect “local character” and designed for people to pose in front of for their Instagram. These places are fun, sometimes. I like them too. But when you go to another city, it’s the same thing there, only with a different sports team’s memorabilia on the walls.
I’m hopeful that a bailout for this industry will come. Someday. And that it will manage to save some of the unique places that can reconnect us to that magic of the cities we love.
Hopefully, it’s in time to save the Pour House.
