Cheers In Boston

After spending the better part of two days getting sweet baby Ames tucked into UConn, we headed back to Boston, including a stretch of the turnpike between Stockbridge and Boston, which brought to mind the old James Taylor lyrics, even if the Berkshires weren’t covered with snow.



We avoided the toll roads, and the traffic didn’t become stop-and-go until we made it into Boston about nightfall. After being forced down several one way streets away from our destination, we found a parking space by the Boston Commons, a lovely park. I was inappropriately dressed in shorts as we walked through the cool night air, but we enjoyed strolling past the beautiful gardens.

Eventually, we came upon Cheers, the fictional home of our favorite TV show from a couple of decades earlier. How could we visit fiction? Well, the last time we were in Boston, it was still called the Bull & Finch Pub, but in the interim someone embraced the fame and replaced the sign with the familiar Cheers.

We walked down the stairs into the basement, where the hostess tried to direct us upstairs, but we insisted on sitting in the downstairs bar, which looks nothing like the TV show set. It turned out she had been trying to send us to the “Set Bar,” which had been created just for tourists to look more like what they expected from TV. There’s also another branch across town that is a duplicate of Cheers from the television show.

In any case, we enjoyed the ambiance of this Boston sports pub, with the bartender wearing his Red Sox uniform as his team played on TV. The prices were more reasonable than I remembered from our previous visit, with my 20 ounce Bud Light and Julie’s rum and Diet running about $5 each.

The food was great. I had a Famous Burger, that included a lean half pound patty with all the trimmings and a hefty helping of French fries for $9.95. Julie was also happy with Frasier’s Chicken Panini on foccacia bread at $11.95 that came with crinkle potato chips. I had to run out at one point to feed the parking meter a block away, but we had a great time.


We decided to turn our rental car in the night before, and we gave the Dollar driver $10 to take us directly to the Hyatt Harborsde instead of connecting two free shuttles. That allowed us to settle in at their deluxe lounge with a panoramic view of Boston’s skyline across the bay through multiple story windows. It reminded me of Royal Caribbean’s Radiance Class ship views, including a glass walled elevator that took us to and from our room. Drinks were $8 in this posh setting, but the view made them worthy of the price.