THEN & NOW
DRINKS BEFORE DINNER BY ERIC J. FRANCIS | PHOTO BY ADRIANNE MATHIOWETZ
Somerville’s rise as a city of great restaurants was fueled by many factors, but among the most important was a loosening of how the city and state regulated liquor licenses.
30 Then & Now | scoutsomerville.com
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hen Stephen Mackey became president and CEO of the Somerville Chamber of Commerce in 1995, the nation was in the midst of an urban resurgence and the city wanted a piece of it. As he saw it, Somerville had three big advantages: It was the most densely populated city in New England, it was closer to downtown Boston than most other parts of that city, and it was right in the middle of the “brainpower triangle” of Harvard, MIT, and Tufts. There were a lot of things Somerville needed to catch the rising wave of urban living, among them improved transit and building its commercial tax base. But first of all, says Mackey, the city needed a hook. “We looked at Boston and it was the political and economic capital; we looked at Cambridge and it was the life sciences capital,” says Mackey. “We decided we’re going to offer dining and night life.” The city had foundations to build upon, including the Somerville Theater, Johnny D’s, and Redbones. But once he started doing what chamber chiefs do—networking with his members, finding out the lay of the land—Mackey made an interesting discovery: A lot of the city’s restaurants were dry, and not by choice. “We had little boutique restaurants with food from all over the world,” he says. “Each of them seemed to have a wine or beer or something that goes with the cuisine, and they couldn’t really be taken seriously by food critics unless they could serve something to complement the food.” The problem was that many of those restaurants didn’t have a liquor license. That’s because the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission restricted the number of licenses that were issued in a city, and
