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Harvard Square Classic Cafe Algiers Closing Forever Sunday
- tlb 10y agoSad. I have fond memories of the place through grad school, Viaweb, and the beginnings of Y Combinator. It was notable for unreliable service. About 70% of the things you ordered would actually arrive at your table. But the atmos was great, and the ibrik coffee was strong.
- hkmurakami 10y agoWhile I've never lived in Boston Cambrigde, my friends would take me here every time I visited them at Harvard. It was a place with an unique atmosphere. Sad to see it go. Woodside bakery and cafe is now gone after 40+ years (landlords wouldn't even give them the chance to renew). It's sad to lose community gathering spots.
- chrisrhoden 10y agoYou'll be glad to know its (well earned) reputation for unreliable service survived to the end. Algiers was an institution and will be sorely missed.
- peterross 10y agoI don't see the big deal. It's just a restaurant, it will be replaced by another one, and even if not why does it matter?
- jvrossb 10y agoRoutine and nostalgia are both very powerful.
- suchow 10y agoWhen institutions die, they take some of our memories with them. Without any cues to recall the old memory, it becomes a sort of neural dark matter that lingers within us but can never be accessed. Because people strongly tie their identities to their memories, in a way we lose a part of ourselves. Old friends and family can help here, providing throwbacks that revive memories on the brink.
- iaw 10y agoWhile not a Havard alum myself there were traditions and parallel institutions at my alma matter that existed long before my grandparents did. There's something to be said about the culture that these places provide and the atmosphere that is forever lost when they close. Something might replace, something may not, but the tradition will be reset.
- DavidWanjiru 10y ago>It's just a restaurant. As opposed to being what, a nuclear reactor? I'm curious what type of institutions you consider important, and see if there are any parallels between those and a restaurant.
- joeberon 10y agoIt has sentimental value to some people
- ryandamm 10y agoEven back in the late 90s / early 2000s, my friends and I felt like Harvard Square was becoming progressively less interesting -- favorite bars and cafes making way for cell phone stores and banks. Seems like a trend -- extrapolating backwards, Harvard Square must've been a nonstop party back in the mid 1600s....
- chiefalchemist 10y agoSounds like NYC as well. So where do all the cool kids go now?
- jnwrd 10y agoHarvard student here - I would like to know as well...
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 10y agoSomerville :)
- sidek 10y agoThis is actually true.
- eropple 10y agoEh. Somerville is real quiet, except when HONK or whatever are going down. I enjoy it, but it's not that kind of scene.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 10y agoVisit Aeronaut on a Saturday.
- eropple 10y ago
- sethbannon 10y agoAlgiers was nice in every way. Wish I could have read a book over tea there one last time.
- vonkow 10y agoI used to skip class in high school to go drink turkish coffee, chain-smoke, and discuss life, poetry, code, and philosophy at Cafe Algiers. I think I learned more there than I did in class. Sad to see it go, kicking myself for not dropping in last time I was in Boston, but all things must pass. Farewell, Algiers, thanks for all the memories and conversations.
- ajmurmann 10y agoIs it my skewed perception or have cafes stopped being places to drink coffee and have great discussions. They now seem to be mainly filled with people on laptops or on their cel phones. I also miss European cafes with waiters...
- vonkow 10y agoJust my personal observations over the past 15 years or so, but I think laptops and headphones killed the cafe.
- Matachines 10y agoThey're just another place to do homework or work now. Not sure where people discuss things in real life nowadays.
- roymurdock 10y agoCigar lounges and boxing gyms.
- readhn 10y agoDamn it, I remember the days when one could sit there inside until 2am in the morning smoking and drinking coffee until closing then driving to Boston sea port watch the airplanes land at night. Good times. The place well be missed :(
- kensai 10y ago“Harvard is for me a synonym of decadence” Jude Law as Pius XIII in the new series "The Young Pope" coming in a screen near you. :p
- weisser 10y agoOne of the most memorable coffee shops I've visited. The architecture, culture, and Turkish coffee were fantastic. I went on a first date with someone who turned out to become a close longtime friend. I worked with my cofounder for 8-hour blocks at a time wired on Turkish coffee (he preferred the mint tea) as we built our first product (DNA Nutrition) and raised our first angel money. It's an amazing coincidence that my cofounder and I found ourselves in Algiers for what was the first time in many months just 2 days before they shut the doors for good. Happy to see this make the front page. This closure stings.
- vessenes 10y agoI had a very awkward date there once; at least I thought it was a date -- she brought a friend. That and what I remember to be uncomfortable cafe chairs and super sweet Turkish coffee, (and possibly egregiously large mediocre hummus plates) will live on in my memory for a bit longer apparently. Makes me so nostalgic! This also reminds me of the watch store by the Harvard Square T main exit closing suddenly -- the owners were reportedly spotted on planes to another country with large suitcases of watches.. So in the canon of Harvard Square shop closings, Algiers is probably not in the top 10. Still, an institution. EDIT: The Handa family story is pretty interesting. Boston Globe had an update in 2012: https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2012/04/21/return-alpha-omega-family/7BOANnSsJboKCS638a8F0K/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2012/04/21/return-alpha...
- makmanalp 10y agoReally one of the few unique places left in the square, the other ones being Passim and Pamplona I guess. And the bookstores. I heard that it got sold, and the new owner isn't into that. Bah. I hope it's not yet another samey gastropub that replaces it. Or at least I hope they keep the interior.
- ghaff 10y agoI can't say I'm a particular fan of the whole Grafton Street look and menu. It's one of those things that there's nothing exactly wrong about the setting or the look. But there's a certain uninspired sameness that's sort of meh.
- kchoudhu 10y agoThis place is an excellent example of an institution that thrives because of its patrons: people hung out here for no reason other than to shoot the shit and drink tea. The food was definitely nothing to write home about.
- blisterpeanuts 10y agoThe hummus was good.
- NickHoff 10y agoSad. Algiers was a good place with a nice atmosphere to sit and read for a few minutes. I'm not too worried about the Square loosing it's feel though - new places will pop up and develop their own lore.
- gardano 10y agoI used to hang out there all the time in the '80s. My most memorable moment would have to be the time I complained to the waitress about the cockroaches that scurried from beneath my plate. Her answer? "What do you expect from a restaurant that's in the f*cking basement?" Strangely, that experience didn't stop me from returning to Algiers…
- blisterpeanuts 10y agoAs a grad student and later denizen of the area, I loved to hang out at Cafe Algiers. I have fond memories of a young waitress dumping a scalding hot pot of coffee onto my lap, then barely saying "sorry". At least they didn't charge me for the coffee.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 10y agoI maintain a small list of places friends should visit when they are in Boston. Algiers was on that list. The Curious George Store and Out of Town News are on that list, but they'll soon be gone too. My recommended Harvard Square places are now Club Passim, Harvard Book Store, and Grolier Poetry Bookshop. It's a bummer.
- djb_hackernews 10y agoIf you are going for Hsq institutions Grendel's Den should really be on that list, they've been around more than 40 years and even won a case that went to the supreme court.
- robbfitzsimmons 10y agoPlus daily $5 lunch specials, which basically sustained me through a startup and grad school...
- gardano 10y agoIt's great for me to hear that Grendel's is still there. I used to love to go there for their Sour Cream Chocolate cake. I don't imagine Elsie's diner is there (and also Tommy's). I loved to get bagels at Elsie's of a morning, knowing that the bagel would be infused with whatever else was on the grill that morning.
- ghaff 10y agoElsie's has been gone for a good couple of decades. I loved their sandwiches and thick frappes (which were called Westerns as I recall).
- cypherpunks01 10y agoAny chance we can see the whole list? : )
- athanasius 10y agoI am curious about why you include Out of Town News. I know it is of historical interest under its original owner but I looked in the other day and it didn't seem especially interesting: as much Harvard gear, sodas, and candy as magazines and those don't seem so significant anymore.
- fiatpandas 10y agoAt least Cafe Pamplona is still chugging along. Not as great atmosphere as Algiers, but still a decent spot, especially in the summer.
- jonstokes 10y agoSo sad to see what the square is turning into. I'm sure Leavitt & Peirce isn't long for this world, either :( I didn't spend much time in Cafe Algiers when I was there, but I did spend a ton of time (and money) at Casablanca, which is also gone :( I'm glad I got to take my wife there at least once before it closed.
- ghaff 10y agoI dunno. Harvard Square's always been changing. I was walking through there yesterday and nothing a number of new restaurants and cafes--most of which weren't any sort of chain. You note Casablanca and I hadn't been there for years before it closed; IMO it turned from a sort of funky place to another sleek midpriced restaurant/bar probably a couple decades ago. My impression is actually that it's the Kendall Square to Central Square to Harvard Square corridor where there are new shops, restaurants, etc. going in these days. For a time, the center of activity seemed to have shifted to Inman Square but I don't sense that's so much the case any longer.
- jacobolus 10y agoFrom what I’ve heard, Harvard Square was a whole lot funkier 40+ years ago. It’s been consistently trending toward gentrification / yuppification from then to now, with ever fewer interesting shops run by weirdo oldtimers and more and more stuff that you could find in any upper-middle-class neighborhood anywhere in the country. Not to mention bank branches on every corner, and much less social/cultural diversity among the neighboring residents.
- ghaff 10y agoThat's probably somewhat true. (And it's certainly true of Central Square--though, to that, I pretty much say no loss.) But the advent of chains like Starbucks and Peets is pretty much universal and there's probably still a fair bit less of that in Cambridge than in other places. Sure, various old institutions close their doors over the years--and what replaces them is inevitably not as "funky"--but there are still a lot of locally-owned stores and restaurants in Harvard Square that have been there for ages.
- arprocter 10y agoI was surprised to find out when Forest Cafe closed that it had been there since 1935 The last time I went to Alden & Harlow mentioned in the piece it was excellent
- maxander 10y agoWhat makes it slightly worse are the odds that the space will sit unused for an arbitrary length of time. Down the street from there is a big "space available" sign that three-odd years ago was a decent movie theater; how much money someone has lost from that extended vacancy is a staggering thought. Similarly, over in Central, TT the Bear's closed last year because the property owners raised the rent; it's also now an empty space in one of the highest-value areas of town. Cambridge is becoming more and more expensive, but at the same time becoming worse managed.