2 min read

Easy DOES It!!

The Bootlegger

Speakeasy

+1 (912) 480-6216

This is the real deal! The uncheesy speakeasy.

Where to begin. Growing up in the Great Depression, my grandparents parents’, dog’s, cousin’s brother….may or may not have made their own “holy water.”

I never knew them. Passed down just two generations to my parents….was the absolute necessity of a basement bar. The suburban speakeasy was in nearly every house of every kid that was born between the 50’s and the 70’s. It was just the evolution of the speakeasy itself. Probably because no one had any money to go out.

The one my grandmother had in Jamaica Plain was my favorite. Dirt floors and a stone foundation. Light bulbs hot enough to light a cigarette off of.

And with a family like mine, going out was never as entertaining as staying in together. But we did plenty of both.

Red lights were popular. The hue changed everything. You were transported in time…

The Bootlegger on River Street made me feel something I haven’t felt since I was 8 or 9. The red velvet bench and the brick walls. The music! And the images on the monitors.

The MENU!! My god the menu. All I had was a meatball appetizer and I was blown away at the flavors.

This place leaves NOTHING out of the experience. The Bootlegger feels like you walked into an actual speakeasy that, at a certain point in its life, decided to go legit.

“Bubbles” was my bartender. A proper villain named for the fact that, according to “the boys”, the “job”isn’t over until there’s no bubbles. Capiche?

The prankster gangster prepared my Diet Coke like it was a complex cocktail. Real crystal glass and all. That was a giant display of The Bootlegger standards of quality service. I felt like royalty.

I’ve never seen more detail tended to in a single task….each one building on the next. Spectacular experience in a fun, relaxed atmosphere.