Saloon — Restaurant in Somerville

Since this speakeasy-style bar isn't easily spotted from the street (there's only a small, white lamp with the name written on it outside), Saloon used to be the type of bar that you suggested when you were trying to impress someone. Too bad it seems like others had this same idea, since now everyone and all their old OK Cupid dates know about (and regularly frequent) this place.

But you can still try it and see how it goes! People who are pretty new to Cambridge are a good target. But from experience, you should let them know how to find it beforehand because if not they may think you're standing them up by suggesting a fake place to meet up. Whoops.

Regardless, it's still a classy choice to get a drink in Davis. I prefer to go on an off night (a great excuse to drink on a Monday!) since it's much less crowded, it's easy to grab a table, and the atmosphere is calmer and more intimate. On weekend nights, it's a completely different scene. There are people standing around everywhere. Randos will talk to you. It's loud.

Saloon has solid drink choices, and the menu is on wooden clipboards, which adds a funky touch but can be bulky if you're sitting at a small table. There aren't many food options, but if you're on a date, rev up the romance by ordering some wine and the charcuterie plate. The bar is a fun place to grab seats so you can watch the cute, suspender-rocking bartenders mix things up. I usually opt for beer since it's a bit easier on my wallet, and the prices are in keeping with similar spots in the area like Foundry. The Lexington Bourbon Ale ($7) is a personal fave since it rocks smokey bourbon tones and is served in a cool rounded glass.

Saloon is Davis epitomized. Alternative morphs to mainstream. But hey, I guess that's how you can tell something's good. And I will definitely keep trying to impress people by how sophisticated and knowledgeable I am by suggesting it. I'll just have to swear...

Came here for dinner and drinks on a Friday night. They serve food until 11.

We shared the fried pickles which was not really a sharing amount. They were more breaded than I'm used to for fried pickles, which left them not being very pickely. One person in our group doesn't like pickles and he gave them a try when we said they weren't pickely but they were still too much for him. The sauce with them was great, but when we asked for more (to go with the fries with the sliders my friends got) we got a different sauce. My friends enjoyed their sliders, saying all were cooked perfectly. The fries were average, but there was a lot of them!

I don't remember what drink I got (and their menu on their website is in a word document and isn't the same as what they have in the bar now) but it was terrible. I'm not one to send something back (it was probably my fault for not knowing the ingredients) so I powered though it. We all kind of felt that way about the menu though--not sure about what half the ingredients were (and we drink a lot). Having a description of the drinks would be great. While they do have a large selection of whiskeys, most were American, and I'm a fan of Irish, so I was a bit disappointed.

They also run out of a lot of things. When we arrived we were told they were out of one cocktail, and then we tried to order another and they were out. Also only had one menu of drinks for a party of 4 so finding what drinks we wanted was hard enough having to pass the menu around.

We had to flag down our server a few times and she seemed to not want to put in drinks that were not on the menu (like when I ordered Jamie and ginger). I felt a bit bad for the servers as a whole because the crowd around the bar seems to be blocking their way from the dining room to...

I've been to Saloon a few times and never had an issue, but I went last weekend and will never go back. My friends and I got to Saloon pretty late last Friday night and sat at a table in the back. We all ordered beers (which aren't cheap) and had a good time chatting. I'm getting over a pretty rough chest cold and while I was in the restroom had a coughing fit. Once My cough was under control I returned to my table of friends. A few minutes later I was passing my brand new beer over to one of my friends to try and as I was pushing across the two tables it hit the crevasse and started to tip over. The door man snatched up the beer and walked away with it. When he came back over near our table I asked him why he took my beer and he responded with " Someone heard you throwing up in the bathroom, so I figured you had enough." I was extremely upset as I wasn't throwing up and had already paid for the beer that he took away. There are proper ways to handle situations like this and that wasn't the correct way. He said he was "watching our table all night" which must have been a short time because we were there under an hour, and "made a call." If he had come over and said " hey someone said they heard throwing up in the bathroom and you are the only one to come out are you feeling okay " I could have told him about my cold, but instead he opted to treat me like a child. He didn't offer to give me my money back and embarrassed me in front of my friends. I will never go back or recommend this...