Fri, Nov 20
The Move
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Choose your filters and we’ll suggest up to three of our favorite places in Boston.
Meetups
Screenings, watch parties and nights out with Secret Boston.
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Social
Wharf Social with Secret Boston
Thu, Nov 19, 2026 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Night Shift Brewing, Lovejoy Wharf
Cocktails on the wharf with your current and future favorite IG handles. Put faces to usernames and have a little pre-holiday fun.
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SECRET BOSTON MEETUP
Tweed Night at The Haven
Tue, Dec 8, 2026 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
The Haven
Trade the inbox for a proper Scottish pub. Come solo or bring a friend and put some faces to the Secret Boston crew.
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Social
JP Winter Social with Secret Boston
Fri, Dec 11, 2026 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Sam Adams Brewery
Winter's here, so meet us where the beer gets made. Come solo or bring a friend and swap holiday plans with the Secret Boston crew.
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Upcoming events in Boston
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See what members getPlaces to go
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Area Four
- Casual
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Aeronaut Brewing Company
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Contessa Boston
- Buzzy
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Tree House Brewing Company – Faneuil Hall
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Guides
Secret Boston shop gift guide: from a $16 CITGO sign ornament to a $128 hoodie
Every product in this guide is an original Secret Boston design. The Christmas collections come right after the gifts that don’t ship, then the stocking stuffers, then Wicked Good for the rest of the year. The physical gifts are made to order when you buy them, and delivery time varies by product (the luxe hoodies take about 9 to 11 days in the US), so check each product page before you count on a date. Shipping is free on US orders over $50. Want to see what other Boston makers are up to? Our Boston craft fairs guide has every holiday market through Christmas, and these 10 shops selling stuff you totally don't need are perfect for the hard-to-shop-for. And if anyone at the party says Boston has always loved Christmas, you can tell them about the time Boston once banned Christmas. The gifts that don’t ship Shopping late, or for the person who already owns every Boston hoodie? Give them a year of Secret Boston Members for $99. Tell us who it’s for, and we’ll email them on the day you choose. It’s paid once, and nothing renews. Can’t pick a size? The shop gift card comes in $25, $50 or $100 and arrives by email. Secret Boston gift membership $99 A full year of Members. Paid once, and it arrives by email on the day you choose. Give a membership Secret Boston Shop Gift Card $25, $50 or $100 Good for anything in the shop, delivered by email. Shop it Boston Ugly Christmas Our loudest holiday collection: BOSTON knit across the front, with the CITGO sign and the T worked into the pattern. The crewneck (from $50, navy or white) runs small, so order one size up, and there’s a navy tee from $28 for the party where the heat is cranked. Boston Ugly Christmas Hoodie From $52 BOSTON across the chest of a navy hoodie, with cream snowflakes and trees. Made for the office party, the tree lighting and the bar after. Shop it Boston Ugly Christmas Beanie, T and CITGO $33 The T in the first O and the CITGO sign in the second, in red and green on a white cuffed beanie. Shop it Boston Ugly Christmas Beanie $33 BOSTON and two snowflakes on the cuff. White on navy, or red on white. Shop it Boston Ugly Christmas Pom-Pom Hat $33 BOSTON and two snowflakes in white on a navy pom-pom hat. Shop it Classic Ugly Christmas The same snowflakes and trees, with the T and the CITGO sign in the middle row and no words at all. Beyond these two beanies, it comes on a navy hoodie (from $52), a crewneck in navy or white (from $50, order one size up), a navy tee (from $28) and a pom-pom hat ($33). Classic Ugly Christmas Premium Beanie $38 Black organic cotton in a snug ribbed knit, embroidered in white. The step up from the cuffed beanie. Shop it Classic Ugly Christmas Beanie $33 The CITGO sign, a snowflake and the T on the cuff. White on navy, or red and green on white. Shop it Wicked Good Christmas Have yourself a Wicked Good Christmas. The script is embroidered on the luxe and premium hoodies and printed in red and green on the rest, including a tee from $28. Wicked Good Christmas Luxe Hoodie From $128 Our heaviest hoodie: 15 oz brushed fleece, 80% organic cotton and 20% recycled polyester with an organic cotton face, embroidered in red on stone or black. It comes in European sizes, so order one size up. Shop it Wicked Good Christmas Premium Embroidered Hoodie From $98 A 10 oz oversized hoodie. Red thread on cream, or the original red and green on white. Shop it Wicked Good Christmas Hoodie From $52 Printed in red and green on ash or white. Shop it Wicked Good Christmas Beanie $33 Embroidered in red and green on a white cuffed beanie. Shop it Stocking stuffers The metal ornaments are $16, printed on both sides in round or bell, with a red ribbon. The wrapping paper also comes as a set of three sheets in red, forest green and navy for $22. Boston Ugly Christmas Ornament $16 BOSTON across the middle, with the CITGO sign and the T in the pattern. Shop it Classic Ugly Christmas Ornament $16 Snowflakes and trees with the T and the CITGO sign. No words, just the pattern. Shop it Wicked Good Christmas Ornament $16 White with red and green script on one side, red with white on the other. Shop it Boston Ugly Christmas Wrapping Paper From $19 BOSTON on repeat with the CITGO sign and the T, in three roll lengths up to 15 feet. Shop it Wicked Good, all year The way Boston says it, without the Christmas, so it gets worn long after December. There’s also a premium embroidered hoodie (from $98) and a classic tee (from $28). Wicked Good Luxe Hoodie From $128 The same 15 oz fleece, 80% organic cotton and 20% recycled polyester, boxy and slightly cropped. Black thread on stone, white on black, and order one size up. Shop it Wicked Good Hoodie From $52 Red on ash, white on navy. Shop it Wicked Good Premium Heavyweight T-Shirt From $42 Garment-dyed Comfort Colors cotton, in ivory, grey, navy or black. Shop it Wicked Good Premium Beanie $38 Ribbed organic cotton with the script in white, in black, Oxford navy or light grey. Shop it Wicked Good Beanie $33 Embroidered in white on a black or navy cuffed beanie. Shop it Wicked Good Rope Cap $38 Black with a white rope, or white with a black rope. Shop it
A smoked toddy in Davis Square and glögg in Kenmore: 5 Boston bars for a hot toddy crawl
Hot drinks are back on Boston menus. Eastern Standard gave them their own section this fall, Saloon in Davis Square finishes its toddy with smoke, and The Independent in Union Square pours three hot drinks, including an Irish coffee you can order without the whiskey. Here’s where to get a hot toddy in Boston right now and exactly what’s in each glass, plus one Irish pub that keeps Irish coffee on the menu. Split it into two short crawls, one night in Somerville and one in Boston. Saloon on Elm Street in Davis Square lists its hot drinks under Heated Spirits, and the Smoked Toddy is the one to get. It’s bourbon, lemon honey cordial and hot water, finished with smoke, for $16. The Cosmic Crisp is the sweeter pick, with salted caramel rye and hot cinnamon cider under an allspice sugar rim, also $16. It comes in a non-alcoholic version for $10, so the friend who’s driving gets a hot drink too. Saloon is the bar next door to The Rockwell, so it works before or after a show there, and Davis is on the Red Line, which makes it an easy first stop. From Davis, it’s a quick Uber to The Independent at 75 Union Square. The house toddy, the Indo Hot Toddy, mixes bourbon with ginger brandy, honey, lemon and allspice for $14. The hot mulled cider is $8 on its own, and you can add bourbon, dark rum or brandy for $6 more. The classic Irish coffee ($13) is Glendalough Double Barrel Irish whiskey and Del’s coffee with demerara, freshly whipped cream and nutmeg, and the spirit-free version costs the same. Drinks are served every night until 1 a.m., so this is the stop where you can stay late. Eastern Standard on Beacon Street in Kenmore Square put three hot drinks on its fall menu under a section called Hot Stuff. The hot toddy is $17 and keeps it classic with Four Walls whiskey, honey and lemon. The mulled cider ($16) is bourbon with local pressed cider, clove, allspice and cinnamon, and the glögg ($16) is a fortified mulled wine with baking spices and orange. With three to choose from, this is the stop to order a round and share. Kenmore is on the Green Line, a few minutes’ walk from Fenway Park. Scampo is chef Lydia Shire’s restaurant inside the Liberty Hotel on Charles Street, the hotel that was once the Charles Street Jail. Uriel’s Hot Toddy ($17) is the brightest drink on this crawl, with fresh lemon and blood orange juice, honey, Four Walls Irish American rye and hot water. If you’re hungry by now, Shire’s fall dinner menu is on too. From Kenmore, take the Green Line to Park Street and ride the Red Line one stop to Charles/MGH, which lets you out right at the hotel. The Black Rose on State Street, near Faneuil Hall, keeps a Jameson Irish Coffee on its regular menu: Jameson, demerara sugar, hot coffee, fresh cream and grated nutmeg. It’s the easy last stop of the night, an Irish pub where the hot drink isn’t a seasonal special, so it’ll be there whenever the cold sets in. Saloon and The Independent make one Somerville night, and two hot drinks at each stop is plenty when most of them run $14 to $17. Eastern Standard, Scampo and The Black Rose make the Boston night, with Kenmore and Charles/MGH both on the T. The prices here come from each bar’s fall menu, and seasonal drinks can change, so check the menu before you head out. Skipping alcohol? Order the non-alcoholic Cosmic Crisp at Saloon and the spirit-free Irish coffee at The Independent.
Get to know Boston
Why happy hour in Boston is still banned
A bar can knock a few dollars off your oysters at five o’clock. Your martini is another matter. Happy hour in Boston is still restricted by a Massachusetts regulation that prohibits temporary drink discounts, free drinks and promotions built around drinking more for less. The rules apply across the state. Cambridge and Somerville cannot offer an escape route, and calling a promotion an industry night does not create one. As of September 19, 2026, the legislature is still considering a change. A Senate vote in favor of happy hour is not the same as permission for your local bartender to start pouring two-for-one margaritas. Why happy hour in Boston disappeared One of the events behind the ban happened outside the Ground Round in Braintree on September 9, 1983. Kathleen “Kathy” Barry, a 20-year-old woman from Weymouth, died after riding on the hood of a car driven by a friend who had been drinking at the restaurant. Some of the driver’s beers had been prizes in a music trivia contest. Reporting based on interviews with Barry’s family and former state officials describes how her death helped turn alcohol promotions into a public-safety issue. Her parents pressed for stronger measures against drunken driving. Massachusetts introduced the restrictions in 1984, during Michael Dukakis’s administration. They targeted the offers that could encourage someone to drink quickly or keep ordering: free rounds, discounted drinks and contests with alcohol as the reward. The ban dates to the same period as many of the clubs in our look at Boston’s bars of the 1980s. The rules have outlasted quite a few of the rooms. An all-day special is not a loophole The key phrase in the regulation is “same calendar week.” A bar cannot offer a drink for less than its regular price during that week. Selling a margarita for $8 all Tuesday and $12 on Wednesday does not get around that restriction merely because the Tuesday price lasted longer than an hour. A reasonably priced drink is allowed. A temporary discount on that drink is what creates the problem. Those are different things when you are comparing menus, even if both might leave you with a smaller bill. The regulation also prohibits charging a selected person or group less than the general public that day, with an exception for private functions not open to the public. Being a restaurant worker, a regular or the person celebrating a birthday does not, by itself, create an exemption. Bottomless brunch has a problem too The restrictions cover unlimited drinks sold for a fixed price during a set period. That rules out the usual public bottomless-mimosa promotion. Increasing the amount of alcohol without a proportionate price increase is prohibited as well, so a bigger pour is not a substitute for a discount. There are limits on service alongside the pricing rules. A licensee cannot deliver more than two drinks to one person at once. Pitchers of beer or mixed drinks must be served to at least two people. Drinking games and contests that award drinks are prohibited. Some provisions make exceptions for private functions. Buying a ticket does not necessarily make an event private; a publicly advertised offer still needs to comply with the rules. Food specials are a different story The regulation’s exceptions expressly allow free food and entertainment, as well as a drink included in a meal package. A discounted appetizer or oyster offer can therefore be legitimate even when its advertised time sounds like happy hour. Read what the offer actually includes. A food discount does not necessarily mean a cheap evening once drinks, tax and tip arrive. And a meal package is not blanket permission for unlimited cocktails alongside a plate of fries. For an evening built around the room and the drinks rather than a promotion, our Boston speakeasies guide is a useful place to start. The latest attempt to change the rules In July 2026, the Senate passed economic-development legislation containing a local-option proposal for discounted drinks. It would allow participating cities and towns to authorize time-limited discounts, subject to conditions including advance notice and a 10 p.m. cutoff. At this article’s September 19 check, the official bill history still showed House and Senate conference committees appointed on July 30 to resolve their differences. The proposal had not become law. Until that changes, a free birthday drink from the bar remains prohibited. Your friends, however, can buy the round.
If you think Bostonians are unfriendly, just ask them for directions
You can walk past the same person three mornings in a row and get nothing, not a nod, not a howaya, and then that same person will stand on a corner walking you from Boylston to Park Street like their train can wait. The unfriendly reputation is not a myth. Lonely Planet tells visitors we will not greet them on the street or start a conversation on the bus, and then says most of us are more than happy to give directions if they ask. Condé Nast Traveler said the same thing years ago: nobody is looking to make friends on the commute, but if you need to get somewhere, almost any stranger will help. Dan Ruben, who ran Boston Green Tourism, told the Daily Free Press that if you ask people here for directions they are as helpful as people anywhere else, they just will not smile at you first. What looks like a cold city is a city that waits to be asked. Howdies are for people you already know. Directions are for anybody who needs them. Nobody says hi first Boston.com asked readers if this is a rude city and a lot of them said yes, then explained that the problem is what other places call friendly. A Chelmsford reader told Boston.com that people here mind their own business and can sound like curt Yankees when you ask a question, while other parts of the country talk louder and stay polite even when they despise you. A Somerville reader called it brusque and then listed airport rides, surgery pickups, and meals when you are sick. An Allston reader used the line a lot of Northeasterners already know, kind but not nice. Newcomers stand there waiting for someone to volunteer a hello and decide the city is closed when it does not arrive. Standing on Boylston looking lost does not count as asking, and hovering over your phone at Arlington does not count either. We assume you know what you are doing, which is the same system as the round: you start, they answer. If you want in, ask a real question. They will talk you all the way there The directions go on so long because the city does. A right turn here does not mean what it means in a grid town. Geoff Boeing mapped street bearings across U.S. cities and found Boston does not organize around one or two compass grids. The Back Bay and South Boston have grids that do not even line up with each other, and everywhere else the streets run in enough directions that a right turn tells you where you are facing for one block and almost nothing about where you are actually going. Boston Magazine already killed the cow-path story Emerson repeated in 1860. The likelier reasons are that the original peninsula was small and hilly, later neighborhoods were filled in as separate grids, and the city annexed whole towns that already had their own street systems: Roxbury in 1868, Dorchester in 1870, Charlestown, West Roxbury, and Brighton in 1873. You are not lost because you are bad at cities. You just walked from one village into another without a sign. That is why a Bostonian will not point and say two blocks west. They will send you toward the Common, the harbor, the Pru, or a Dunkin' they have used as a landmark since before the app, and they will tell you which T, which exit, and which side of the station puts you on the wrong street. They will use the name locals say and then the name on the sign, because those are not always the same thing. Boeing, borrowing from Kevin Lynch, called Boston hard to read as a pattern and easier to hold as landmarks, which is already how people here keep the city in their head. When you ask, you are not interrupting so much as opening that map. Just ask Do not apologize for three sentences and do not tell your life story, and do not grab someone mid-crosswalk. Step out of the flow, pick one person, and ask something specific: how do I get to South Station from here, where is the Green Line, is this the way to the North End. Then let them finish, because they will talk longer than the question requires, not to show off but to keep you off Tremont when you wanted Beacon. If they offer a second route, take the first one they trusted enough to say out loud. This is the icebreaker people look for when they are new and tired of the silent sidewalk. It is one of the few times a Bostonian wants to be stopped. You think you are bothering them. They think you finally asked for something they know how to do, and in a town that treats unsolicited chat like a violation, a real question is almost a favor. If you walk off while they are still talking you were not asking, you were testing whether we are nice, and we will still get you to Park Street either way.