I've always thought of the North End as a tough place to get away from the tourists and have a beer with friends. Corner Cafe really defies these thoughts about the North End. Corner pub is the definition of a locals place, where the bar tender watches the big game with you and allows you to bring your own food in and then cleans up your food boxes so you wonder where they went. It's a fabulous spot to grab a drink with a couple friends and just relax. I can absolutely see this as a spot to duck into during the summer saint's festivals for a cold beer. Just remember cash! read more

Cash Only. 2 of the 4 beers on tap were out. It seems like a local bar. The bartender was friendly.

My friends and I descended on this place yesterday after work. We were definitely the only non-regulars and we were pretty loud compared to the quiet mutterings of the surrounding middle-aged-ers... but we really liked it. Strong pours on the gin and tonics and the whiskey sours were great. The bartender was patient with all of our drinks (making five mixed drinks in a row, twice, is probably annoying when all of your other patrons are chilling with wine and beer). Must be the cheapest drinks in the area as well. I think only two beers were on tap, so that might be something to consider if you're on a hunt for beer. Stella and... something. read more

This is a definition dive bar, but the bartender is great and they have every ingredient you could hope for outside of muddling rasperries etc. It's not the cheapest beer you've ever had, but it's always clean, including the bathroom, has all new Sam tap lines, and you can even grab a slice down the street and bring it in with you as long as you are tipping well. Plenty of TVs but they are small. Cash only but there is an ATM inside. read more

After last night, I'm dying to be a regular. A group of three, we were one of about 7 total patrons at the bar. The tv's played the Bruins with sound. A cougar came in to hit on younger men, play keno and drink a cocktail. I sat with my $4 guinness and eavesdropped on a conversation on a local with a couple from my hometown. A man ordered pizza. I interrupted the conversation to talk about my hometown, St.Louis. The pizza came. The man who ordered it offered my table some. Free dinner. The man filled the juke-box with singalong classics. Wham! came on. We all sang. Full, joyful, buzzed. Nice people, sports, beer and pizza for the masses. Everything a dive could aim to be. read more

I think I would be camping out here if I lived in the neighborhood. We ended up here because we had a two-hour wait for a table at Neptune Oyster down the street, and I am so glad we did. We walked in to this charming corner bar and The Cure's Disintegration was playing. Talk about starting off on the right foot. It wasn't just a fluke- several selections from it played, then the music moved on to stuff from the most angst-y phases of my high school and college years, like Depeche Mode and the Cranberries. Someone had stolen my iPod, clearly. Needless to say, I felt right at home. Oh, right. Beer. You may be wondering what they serve. The night we visited, it was Harp and Bass. The prices were reasonable. There was a tv to watch the Sox, naturally. There's one single-person bathroom for everybody, so don't expect a towel lady to greet you. And despite the fact that we were tourists, we didn't feel like it here. read more

I had a really good time here. I stopped in for a drink and ended up chatting with Althea (bartender) & her customers. This is def a neighborhood bar where everyone knows everyone. They made me feel like i was apart of the family. So much o that Joe (a regular at the bar) proposed to me . Even with the 60 year age difference I gladly accepted . I can't wait to come back for our bar wedding read more

They let us use the bathroom and we bought a beer. And then... we made friends with the bartender and two or three of the patrons and we swapped recipes and laughed and it was like being with friends at your favorite place. In a matter of about an hour or so we felt so comfortable there. So awesome. Still hoping to find out if Althea used that ricotta recipe we gave her. read more

The bar was fine for quality in terms of being a dive bar, but it isn't cheap ($) as advertised on yelp and is the point of a dive. Charged me $72 for 4 cocktails and a beer. That's over $14 per drink including a Sam Adams in Boston... read more

Cheap and simple drinks in a relaxed atmosphere. Nothing fancy here, just a storefront with a few tables and a small bar. Easy to miss for those like me that are new to the area, but simple and no fuss. Don't go looking for a huge selection or high-end cocktails. Excellent end to a night of wandering the North End. read more

(2/2) Buttons popped from top to bottom and the tunes just got louder as we continued to cement our bond with our two newest friends. T and M basically refused to pour beer and pushed forward with their own agenda of shot glasses and deadly mixed drinks. On the whole it was nothing to complain about. When the dust settled we were well past closing time, completely plastered and definitely shirtless, some of us sitting or laying on the bar. The good news was that we were all still alive, some of us knew just a bit more about Poland, and we all learned M and T were actually dating and destined for a rendevous in the storage closet. Our last memories were of wandering out of the bar into the cold evening air, some of us wearing all of the clothes we arrived in, others not so much. My own last memory was signing a bill for $30 to cover my five hour bender. I sent a quick thank you up to the Lord for my insanely low bill and slipped into a warm sweet blackout. We woke up from Blackout City the next morning excited to be in Jersey City, the Dirty Jers. Unfortunately we needed to make a quick trip back to the bar to reclaim some personal items we had forgotten. It turns out that the Lord really was looking out for us. We walked back into the bar at 1pm to find all three of our newfound friends there. The drunken busboy completely ghosted us, apparently recalling nothing from our five hour stint the night before. M spotted us and walked up with a smile and big handshakes. "Why did you make me drink so much last night?! I was here until 4:45am and had to open! Wanna stick around and watch the game?" And Sweet T was, as expected, behind the bar, ignoring customers and drinking a pint of cold beer. I've made a personal pledge to visit this bar every time I'm in Jersey City and I think you should, too. Five stars all around, hell I'd give it six if the folks at Yelp would let me. read more

Corner Cafe - A Ding Dong Boy in his natural habitat. - Dive Bars Near Me - Boston, Massachusetts

Good little dive bar. Cash only. Good mix of people flow through and the bartenders are pretty friendly read more

Best dive bar in the North End and surrounding areas. The bartenders can be rude if you don't know them, and quite frankly - they probably don't want you there if you don't know them and they aren't going to hide it. Put in your time, don't act like a jackass and you'll wind up absolutely loving the place and getting great service. One tip - don't order food. EVER. If you're hungry, skip the line and get take out from Regina, Dino's or from one of the dozens of other options in the neighborhood and bring it to the corner cafe. The bartenders welcome it. read more

A very cool local place just what I was looking for that whole in the wall bar. Beers a bit on the expensive side $5 for a Miller light but when you are in town for a vacation you pay what you have to. Bartender was great very friendly had many stories to tell about the neighborhood. Only place I could find Keno while having a few beers. read more

My go to neighborhood spot. Locals and friends. Great staff and nice easy after work drink. Don't come here if your looking to party. This is a neighborhood dive bar. Not Tavern in the Square. read more

I first came here for the 2014 super bowl, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The bartender at the time was very friendly, free popcorn and I had myself a good time! Fast forward to late 2015 - bartenders have become rude and have anger management issues. Girlfriend went over to play music on jukebox which was met by screaming bartender "hello???? Hello??? No!!! I'm playing music!!!" So i Tried to play the jukebox myself and it worked but was very quiet so I asked the other bartender (older guy, balding) if it still working. His response - slams $5 bill on the table "don't do that again!!" Guess they missed out on customer service 101. Alright, maybe it was a one time thing let me try again - Bartender (girl, dark curly hair) is sitting on the ground, face in her hands and looks seriously sick. I asked her if she was ok. Her response was that she ate some "organic mushrooms" and that she was feeling sick. Hokay... Such a shame. Had a great first impression but it's a dive and not in the positive way. There is a lot of potential here and it is sadly blown by poor, unprofessional staff. Perhaps they should consider applying at dicks last resort. read more

I don't have high standards for bars. This bar was revolting. The smell was horrendous, overpowering, and so nauseating I couldn't imagine myself drinking a beer there. I wouldn't have been able to keep it down. Imagine the worst body odor you have ever smelled and multiply it by ten. And they only take cash. I felt that was my out and when asked what I wanted I said I needed to go get cash and made my way to the door. The patrons made fun of me for leaving. I could hear them outside through the open windows yelling "goodbye" .. "so long..." and generally carrying on... If it's your bar and you live in the neighborhood, great... otherwise steer clear of this shit hole. read more

Had a drink or two or three while waiting on a friend. The server was friendly and the beer was cheep. Cant imagine any good food coming out of the corner kitchen thats behind the bar. read more

It's a rainy Thursday night, I have no money, clean clothes, ambition or desire to speak to any other living soul. However, the long rainy work week inspires a strange grey ambition to get out of the apartment for a few beers. My two roommates, both in similar conditions, agree a public appearance is probably in our best interest. These culminating factors make for an easy decision, our inaugural visit to Corner Café. As our mangy threesome entered the establishment we gave a friendly WUD UP? to the patrons at the bar. At this point one of the 3, seemingly deep in conversation, returned to the business side of the slab. It was the bartender "Ray", a good ole chap, immediately inquired what we fancied to drink. "Bud bottles" we unwittingly replied, not realizing they obviously had cheaper cans. Beers were delivered frosty, with a smile. Ray went back to conversing with the homely couple at the bar and we were left to sip suds while watching my degenerate friend loose a measly $25 dollars on the Packers/Saints NFL opener. The excitement of my pal's misery quickly stirred up my appetite so I beckoned Ray back over to describe the specials. "Well" he says, "I can cook you some chicken fingers or motzi sticks...". Although he was willing, I declined and he gave me the menu, a takeout slip from Dino's! This was perfect so I wasted no time dialing in a large steak bomb. By the time I was through half of the monstrous submarine we were ready to call it a night. Ray had fulfilled our needs as a friendly bartender, lifting the spirits of 3 pathetic lads, when, what's this? Two Hot Babes*!!!... Walking in the door. I quickly hid the second half of my greasy sub in my pocket, Ray delivered another round and it wasn't long before the awkward conversation started to flow. Blah, Blah, Blah, six or so beers later we were still drooling over babe #1's figure while she droned on about her new found love for surfer bros. A number was had by one of the two single roommates but unsurprisingly nothing materialized. Enough already though, this is after all, a Yelp review on Corner Café. To sum it up, this place gets 4 stars because it is exactly what it looks like, a dive and a pleasant one at that. Friendly cheap and easy. Ray got a $12 tip on a $39 dollar tab, partly because he was awesome and partly because he played wing man, wooing babe #2. *Disclaimer: "babe #1" had a Kim Kardashian @ss stuffed into Kate Moss' jeans and a Kelly Kapowski shoulder less belly shirt. The other, "babe #2" was really only a 6 read more

What a great little hole in the wall, and I mean that in THE best possible way! Lots of locals, but I swear, walk in with your luggage/gear, saddle up at a high top or the bar "proper", state your needs, and you WILL be taken care of! You know, like, everywhere else in the world, you give what you get, right? One star reviews on here are FLOORING.ME. I'm super excited for those people to never come back and keep going where they're going...FOREVER! Bring cash, for the bar, AND for the scractcher machine! Good karma y'all...the last time I was in there I won $50 on a scratcher, bought a round of fireball shots and beers for me and my BFF, offered one to our barkeep Ray, who declined, and still had lots of money left over for BOVA treats! Karma, baby! Can't wait for my next trip back to the North End, skip all the lines, and hoity toity rah shah shah BS, and hit up Ray at the Corner Cafe!!!!! XOXO read more

Basically, a dive. Cheap beer and a minimal variety thereof; loud locals and louder music (Jeff Buckley's "Last Goodbye" merits a star in itself). No complaints whatsoever. read more

Best Neighborhood Bar in the North End!!!! Cheap beer, awesome Grape Crush Shots ( I would recommend everyone try atleast one) and great food! Add in keno, lottery and scratchers, seriously no way to beat it. read more

You know what I like about this place? Not one not two, but three air fresheners in the bathroom. The bartender is nice if you don't forget your Ps and Qs. Use your manners. read more

I wish this place was a woman so I could get her pregnant and make another one near back bay. This place never fails. Great Dive Bar. Awesome delivery service. The Garlic Chicken Wrap on Pita is usually my order but everything else I've tried on the menu has been spectacular. read more

Wow! What's not to like about this place! It's a typical neighborhood bar in the North End. We found it here on Yelp and we are go glad we did! We were looking for a local place to watch NASCAR before going to dinner and the bartender was kind enough to put the race on for us! We were the only "out of towners" there and the people could not have been nicer! They helped us decide where to go for dinner. One of the customers even called the restaurant for us to make sure they had veal chops which me husband was craving. When we find ourselves in the North End again we will DEFINITELY be back!! read more

Cheap drinks! The bartender Joe only works during Mondays and Tuesdays so make sure to go those days. I ordered drinks that I found off the internet and he did his best to make them and he basically charged me half price because I ordered 4 drinks and it only cost me $15! If I ever find myself in Boston again I'm pretty sure that I'm going to drink in this bar again! And too bad they ran out of pudding shots because I really wanted to try them. read more

A dive. Excellent! Drink beer and don't impress anyone. And if the bartender doesn't like you, it's probably because you're a jerk!

Nice, AC, Jurassic Park and good music but bad beer

We walk into The Corner Cafe to find the 80-something bartender n cook standing behind the bar with nothing to do. We order our drinks and food and wait. read more

(This bar is the single greatest treasure Jersey City has to offer. This should be blocked off and considered holy ground, a museum-like tribute to the evening of their handsomest patrons. The first hour of our stay was uneventful. We were in a group of about 50 for a going away party and had a very normal bar experience. But as time went by this wonderful watering hole revealed it's true colors. It started with the female bartender, T, joking sarcastically with the members of our group. She seemed confused by her own jokes and on the whole so were we. In her mind what drinks they did or didn't have and who was or wasn't cut off from service was a sort of revolving door of logic. Nothing made sense to us or her, but if you waited long enough she'd serve you almost anything. It wasn't likely to be your first choice, because many first picks she refused to make without explanation, didn't have the glassware for, (false), or didn't know how to ring up. The good news was that her second choice was always basically a molotov cocktail in a glass. Things turned up a notch when members of our group started laying back on the bar and getting liquor poured into their mouths and in their eyes. What they lacked in aim they made up for in generosity. We felt like we were really bonding with the staff at that point. The relationship progress we were making with the two bartenders was being sidetracked by the busboy, who was one of the drunkest people in the building from the start. He seemed hazy on the job description, because instead of removing dirty glassware he seemed to spend his time bringing our most handsome group members, (we were a VERY handsome group), full beverages. Those free beverages he served up did have a cost, though. The going rate was a large dose of Axe bodyspray directly to the chest and pelvis. When he wasn't hosing us down he was spraying himself with Axe in the corner or breaking glassware and continuing to work with blood on his clothes. I'd give him a 6/10 for enthusiasm and a 2/10 for safety. When the bartenders seemed to notice his state they went out of their way to ask me whether he might be drunk on the job. It seemed obvious when we looked at him because at the time he was wobbling around and hanging onto a computer monitor for dear life, clearly in the middle of a bad case of the spins. The two bartenders looked back at me, gave me a, "ehh, he's probably shitfaced", and moved right along. It might have felt hypocritical to judge him because at this point they were fairly drunk themselves. Any big night out needs to have a contest of some sort. A good contest should be a battle of strength, wits or stamina. We settled on arm wrestling and set up in the middle of the bar, throwing bills down to jockey for the winners. After a few rounds we saw M vault over the bar, (a genuinely impressive physical act), and inject himself into the competition. He won, earned a big cheer from our group and then started a bar-wide round of rapid fire trivia, all of which were facts about Polish capitals come and gone. In the end, he admitted to tanning his way into the guido lifestyle to overcompensate for his lack of Italian bloodline. We gave him a pass and sent him back behind the bar. While M knew every one of the two past capitals of Poland, he and T knew nothing about basic math, something we realized when the shots broke out. An order of six whiskey shots was likely 8-11 shots of vodka. An order of 3 tequila shots could be 9-14 shots of rum, and at points there was nobody ordering but they were still pouring and auctioning the shots off. On the whole, this sort of behavior is a testament to bad math and makes me want to push teachers to stop teaching the subject entirely. At this point we were all pretty high off of the excitement of arm wrestling, confused from the unexpected trivia, drunk off of miscounted shots and a little alarmed that the busboy was still spraying himself with deodorant in the corner. We realized the only way to bring things back into balance was a little Christmas cheer. The Ding Dong Boys, everyone's favorite Christmas singers took to a raised area of the bar to perform their stirring rendition of Carol of the Bells. Their beautiful voices sung the rallying cry of the evening, snapping everyone into a laser-like focus. We knew exactly what we needed. Less shirts and more shots. (1/2) read more

This is a place that will get higher ratings from its frequent patrons. It's not about quality so much as it is about familiarity, ease of access, and feeling as if you belong. In another life, I would spend a lot of money here & have no regrets. In this one, I am an infrequent visitor but am glad to have the Corner Cafe nearby. read more

Probably the best bar I've been to while in Boston, bc of the people who own and work there.

The best dive bar in all of Boston. Friendly people, great atmosphere- you wont get a better Boston experience anywhere. True to the spirit of the North End, this bar offers affordable drinks and friendly staff. read more

Exactly what is needed after walking the Freedom Trail for a couple hours! Great "dive" bar!!

little weird place. Stopped there since it was the only open bar around the area but didnt really like it. They only accept cash .. so be prepared. read more

Good food at great prices, nice little towny place. Bring cash, they don't take cards. :)

This is the best bar ever!!!! Ray & Althea, what more can I say!!!! Best bartenders around!!!

I get a kick out of the few negative reviews that Corner Cafe has. Yes, it's a dive bar not a cafe, deal with it. Yes, it doesn't have 100 craft beers on tap, deal with it. Yes, the TV's are small and squeezed into corners of the bar, deal with it. This place has cheap beer, KENO, and respectful staff. If you want to go to a club and spend $20 a drink on crappy euro-trash drinks while you prowl for drunk young girls then go to a club. If you'd rather be at a bar with cheap drinks and good people then visit the Corner Cafe. read more

The Corner Cafe is awesome. I Love this place because they make you feel like you belong there. Also the owner is so handsome and kind

Service here is terrible and I think the TV setup is awful too. Also, they advertise discounted rates on Bud Light pitchers but charge more when you actually order them. I wish this place was more hospitable to locals, but every time I've been in here I've come away with a bad taste in my mouth. Don't waste your time here and spend your money in a place that actually might act like they appreciate the business. Ducali, North Street Grille, Sail Loft, Artu, Pushcart Cafe, and Billy Tse's are all local places I'd go to before going back to Corner Cafe. read more