The diner on the Charlie’s Kitchen first floor feels like a counter dive crossed with a counter diner, a line of booths running along one wall of the space and the bar extending nearly the full length of the wall opposite. Stationary stools provide counter-style seating at the bar and a front row seat to lighting that can best be described as carnival fun house-style mirrored neon. There’s something about the combination of Christmas lights, mirrored liquor bottle stands behind the bar, pink neon signage above the bar and glistening black & white tile throughout that seems to cause the light to bounce off of every surface at ever increasing speed.
Yes, the menu includes things like a salmon burger and double lobster roll special, but the clear specialty of the house is a set of double cheeseburger offerings, well-proclaimed by Charlie’s Kitchen as the neighborhood favorite with the online reviews to back up the claim. Count this reviewer as part of the adoring crowd, a double bacon blue cheeseburger hitting the spot to lay a foundation for further Cambridge dive bar exploration that evening.
Upstairs, the vibe is almost the inverse of the brightly-lit, inside-of-a-disco-ball feeling of the diner counter below. The lights are dimmed, the surfaces are duller, the speed a little slower. This is a college dive bar perched above Harvard Square that demonstrates clearly why this one-two diner-dive punch has been so effective since the doors opened in 1951. The classic Charlie’s Kitchen jukebox can be found up here, one of the features of the bar most mentioned when locals find out you’re interested in visiting. The CD-based collection provides exactly the type of selection you’d expect from a 1950s-era campus dive bar, in the best possible way.
