Nine Bar Espresso — Restaurant in Somerville

This is the premier espresso bar in Somerville. While there are other cafes around that do serve espresso, none can come close to the quality and consistency of Nine Bar. This goes for other drinks as well as Nine Bar is also the best place to get hot coffee, iced tea, and cold brew!

If you are picky about your coffee quality, this is the place for you.

I would also like to compliment the staff for being exceedingly friendly and great at keeping a line moving. Even when they're slammed I don't feel like I wait long at all.

Finally, I want to praise their solution for staying open while protecting their employees. What once was a front window is now the ordering/pickup counter. There is even a plastic curtain to prevent airflow in and out of the store. The employees all wear masks and disinfect the payment terminal after every customer. As one of said customers, I feel comfortable supporting this business as they are not staying open by risking their employee's health.

Thank you Nine Bar, I...

Take out only from a window along the sidewalk. I actually walked past it because it's not marked well at all. You just walk up and order but then have to stand and block the sidewalk while waiting for your food/drink, which is really weird to me. The pictures on google maps and their website look like there's an inside area when there isn't, which is misleading. I get closing the inside during COVID, but if you're not planning to open the inside up to customers, the website should be updated to say it's takeout only. I didn't even realize they had pastries until I came to write this review because they weren't advertised or in the window or anything. I just got an iced latte and it was fine, but...

Overall pretty disappointing. The coffee was bad. Ordered a decaf oatmilk latte and an oatmilk chai. Temperature was fine, but the foam was really poor. The chai didn't actually have any foam.

The sausage egg and cheese was fine, just a little greasy. They put bacon on it too which i didn't ask for, which isn't a big deal and maybe a bonus, but they also gave me a large latte which I definitely didn't want, so i think they're just prone to mistakes.

Between mistakes and the poor latte, two stars is a stretch and really just because the food was decent. Not having any indoor space at all is kind of a bummer too...