Last weekend, while ITM was attempting to cover Baseball's HotStove Cool Music event, we made a few pit stops in between the round table discussion and the concert at Paradise Rock Club.....and by pit stops I mean we went to a few bars in and around Fenway Park. As I'm sure many of your know, Bleacher Bar recently opened inside Fenway Park, giving Red Sox Nation (and the just plain thirsty) a new spot to sink some beverages and take in a game. We thought it might be interesting to provide ITM readers with some of our thoughts and opinions on the bar.
I'll put this disclaimer in early, we entered the bar only a few hours after meeting and chatting with Heidi Watney, so you could have put us in the middle of Roxbury and we would have been delighted. That said, there was a light crowd that Saturday night, we assumed between the snow storm and the off season, this was about normal (which was confirmed by our waitress). The bar's claim to fame is the view it provides onto the field via an opened garage door in left center. Contrary to some of the rumors out there, the door stays open for all games, providing patrons lucky enough to get a seat in the area with a spectacular view of the game (ITM note: In order to get one of those precious seats you would likely have to show up at 4pm for a 7pm start). You almost feel as though you are on the field, and for just one second, it made me wish Manny was back falling all over himself in left, just to see his reaction to having fans so close (see picture below).
The bar itself is smaller than you would expect, with limited draft beers and prices that fit right in with other bars in the area (i.e., pretty expensive). In addition, it was lacking in a very important area...the "TV to drinker" ratio....ITM believes in a 1/2...maybe a 1/3 ratio....Bleacher Bar pulled in around 1/50 (only a few TV's). We were also disappointed to learn that the food menu only includes appetizers and they did not offer sandwiches, burgers, dogs etc.
Perhaps even more interesting than the view onto the field, is the view from the bathroom (I feel weird just typing that). The men's room is located upstairs, and above the urinals is a window that looks out into the bar.....so basically everyone sees your face while you're at the urinal....it gets really weird..especially when people are staring at you when they're doing what they're doing in there.
Without getting into more detail, ITM felt that Bleacher Bar would be great if you have the right seat for a game. Otherwise it gets very crowded on game days, much like Game On! or the Cask, but without the bar space. All in all, we stumbled out of the bar and headed to the Paradise Rock Club agreeing we would come back, but if it wasn't for the view of the field, we would visit many of the other area bars before stopping by Bleacher Bar again.
Bleacher Bar:
82A Lansdowne Street (inside Fenway Park)
Boston, MA
(617) 262-2424
- Open Year Round
- Opened May 16, 2007
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