Backbar’s rotating menu are a special feature that regulars particularly appreciate.

By Karenna Umscheid

You may have heard of backbar – it’s been named as one of the coolest bars in the world by Thrillist, and one of the best in Boston by Boston Magazine. It has a reputation for being a hidden gem, a speakeasy-style spot in the heart of Union Square. To Somerville residents, backbar is just a gathering place, a welcoming institution since its opening in 2011.

backbar immediately feels warm and welcoming. 90’s and New Wave tracks accompany the warm, dim lighting and lively conversation punctuates the music. It’s very busy, even on weekdays, but the staff are still relaxed, dancing with each other in between taking orders and making drinks. Some of the decor includes designs in chalk, a galaxy light, candles, and a pride flag of lightsabers.

backbar is helmed by co-owner Sam Treadway, who took the role as bar manager after working as a bartender at numerous places throughout the city. Treadway was fairly new to Union Square, and aspired to connect with the community while also serving high quality cocktails.

“We had an interesting reception of people being like ‘What is up with these drinks? What is up with these prices?’ and we’ve had to play a balancing act of realizing, well, we want to be a neighborhood bar that happens to have higher quality drinks, but we don’t want to put ourselves on some kind of pedestal where it’s this really fancy experience, and alcohol should be fun so let’s make it fun.”

Co-owner Sam Treadway

Jacqueline Cain, editor for Time Out Boston, moved to Union Square in 2014 and was immediately enraptured by backbar’s ambiance, particularly the feel of the hidden door entrance.

“You’re like ‘am I in the right place?’ and you get there and the drinks were, like I can’t even describe, I didn’t even know what I was drinking, but I was very game.”

Sam Gabrielli, a bar manager in Cambridge, was a regular over ten years ago. Having just moved back to the area, he says the place still has the same feel it did when it first opened, but more fleshed out.

“It was a skeleton before, but now it is a body,” he said.

backbar’s rotating menus, which feature inventive cocktails, are a product of collective staff input and passions. Apart from the menus, the bartenders also offer the option to create something new for each guest, based on their preferences.

“You show up and you’re like ‘I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know what half these ingredients are,’ and they’re so ready to give you recommendations or work with you to come up with a drink that you’re gonna love and remember in ways that I had really never experience before and now, ten years on, they still are innovating in that way,” Cain observes.

backbar’s creative cocktails are a result of the inventive, collaborative staff. Current bar manager Iruma Shibuya names the Akbar Sushi cocktail as a favorite invention of his, which involves rum, rice wine vinegar, and mango puree, as well as other ingredients that invoke a vegetarian cucumber mango sushi roll that Shibuya was inspired by.

“backbar is kind of like an artist collective of bartenders, and I kind of liken us to a bunch of artists that make 60 second sketches, but with cocktails instead,” Shibuya says.

Treadway credits the input and creativity of his staff for the menu innovations and themes, which range from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings to a Pride theme in June. The first iteration was a world map, which also featured fantastical locations such as Wakanda and Hogwarts, and proved to be a huge hit with customers.

“This was suddenly like ‘Oh, well now I have to come back, I have to try all the drinks, I need to know what India tastes like and I need to know what Russia tastes like.’”

This welcoming nature extends to regular customers and community members. Valerie Li, a Somerville resident and food and drink writer and editor, says that she goes to backbar “on good days, on bad days, on every other day. My partner and I spend a lot of time at backbar, not only to kind of try their new menu every once in a while, but also to just check in on the people working there, because they are really good friends and some of them are good family to us.”

Despite backbar’s appreciation for the acclaim they’ve received in news outlets, Treadway sees the welcoming space backbar has provided as the bar’s biggest achievement.

“The number one thing we do isn’t make drinks, the number one thing we do is take care of people and make them smile and welcome them into our weird little cocktail den for a couple hours,” he says.