Boston’s once-gritty downtown sure has changed—except at Biddy Early’s, where the long-running dive bar’s sticky floors, graffiti-covered bathrooms and cheap beer pay no mind to the surrounding upmarket developments. PBRs are not pounded ironically here, whether by barfly scallywags, after-work FiDi dudes or budget-conscious 20-somethings. And in a neighborhood courting increasingly classier crowds, you have to love the saltiness of a spot whose wine menu is a dry-erase board offering “red or white.”
Biddy Early's
141 Pearl St, Boston • (617) 654-9944
Other Winners
-
Dive Bar
2014 Winner: Charlie’s Kitchen
With its neon-filled windows and worn walls of white diner tile, this beloved beer and (deliciously sloppy) burger dive...
- 10 Eliot St., Cambridge
- (617) 492-9646
- charlieskitchen.com
-
Dive Bar
2015 Winner: Silhouette Lounge
There are plenty of college bro bars one might stumble into in Allston—and some fine beer bars, too—but for our money, one of the best watering holes in Rock City is the Sil’…...
- 200 Brighton Ave., Boston
- (617) 206-4565
-
Dive Bar
2016 Winner: Cantab Lounge
Grandiloquent laudations of lowly dive bars usually tick through this checklist of charms...
- 738 Mass. Ave., Cambridge
- (617) 354-2685
- cantab-lounge.com
Photo Credit: John D. Keegan -
Dive Bar
2017 Winner: Drinking Fountain
As the glut of luxury condo builds attests, nowhere in Boston is safe from gentrification...
- 3520 Washington St., Boston
- (617) 522-7335
