Housed in the former Boston Police Headquarters, Precinct Kitchen & Bar opened in May at the Loews Boston Hotel and is available for private events. The 5,245-square-foot restaurant and patio serves modern New England-style cuisine and seats 69 guests in the dining room or holds 140 for receptions.
Tony C’s Sports Bar & Grill, an 11,000-square-foot baseball-theme restaurant, opened in December at Assembly Row in Somerville. Sports fans can watch games on a four-sided Jumbotron display that incorporates multiple screens; the entire venue has 90 televisions throughout. For a more intimate experience, a dining area on an elevated platform can be sectioned off from the bar using sliding glass doors. It seats 60 or holds 100 for receptions. The entire venue seats 337 guests indoors, while the seasonal patio overlooking the Mystic River seats 184.
The Spirit of Boston is undergoing a $2.5 million transformation expected to finish in April. The redesigned vessel, which has 9,900 square feet of event space, will feature contemporary furniture, an outdoor bar, remodeled interior bars, and new dance floors. The dining and cocktail menus will also be updated. The ship holds about 600, while private decks can accommodate groups of as many as 350. Semiprivate space is available for smaller groups.
Tucked inside the famed Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel, the 140 Supper Club is a unique room complete with a password and century-old descending staircase. The 740-square-foot space seats 30 guests at a farmer’s table that runs the length of the space for the hotel’s menu of four decadent, seasonally inspired dinner courses. The space is newly available for private events this summer.
The icy-cold bar Frost (the temperature is kept at 21 degrees) now has a sister space for those who prefer room temperature. The Gallery at Frost Ice Loft is a sunlit event space and home for the arts overlooking Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. The 2,600-square-foot Gallery has 15-foot-high ceilings with hardwood floors and a rotating lineup of ice sculptures. The gallery, which opened in early July, holds 130 guests for receptions.
Following a renovation, 25,000 square feet of meeting and event space at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge premiered in July. The President’s Ballroom holds 1,000 guests reception-style or seats 900 theater-style in the 7,000-square-foot space. It also has 1,300 square feet of prefunction space and an adjacent outdoor courtyard. The Charles View Ballroom, which offers floor-to-ceiling windows and views of Boston’s cityscape, is ideal for groups of 400 for receptions or 220 for banquets. The multilevel, 3,262-square-foot Empress Ballroom with a private balcony and Charles River views holds 350 guests for receptions or seats 220 for banquets. The Patriot's Hallway, a combination of five smaller rooms, holds 150 guests per room for receptions.
Bliss Spa, located at the W Boston, underwent its own face-lift and reopened in March. The theater district spa added amenities with the introduction of a new high-tech nail lounge featuring mani-pedi stations with personal iPads. For groups, the 5,800-square-foot space holds 30 for private events in one of five studio spaces, where planners can offer catering and activities. Guests can then be called individually for treatments.
Housed in a pre-Civil War-era building overlooking Boston Harbor, the Boston Harbor Distillery serves as both a distilling facility and an event space, complete with a tasting room. The whole space, which opened in June, is 11,000 square feet and holds 200 guests for receptions, which can feature samples of the distillery’s trademark brand, Putnam New England Whiskey. A private meeting room, dubbed the Chart Room, comfortably seats 30 people.
A Boston branch of Japanese coffee chain Ogawa Coffee opened in late May, serving artisan coffee beverages along with breakfast, lunch, and sweets. The 1,538-square-foot space seats 50 guests. Alternately, stadium seating for 50 is available via retractable seating in front of the bar. The space has three televisions, including one that can be programmed using AirPlay, and is available for buyout.
A co-working space by day, the newly refurbished Oficio has doubled its square footage while creating a cozier vibe. It has a 750-square-foot event space available for weekend or evenings that holds 50 for receptions or seats 20 and has wireless speakers for music. There are also two breakout rooms, one that seats 10 guest and the other for four guests. Each includes an HD monitor for presentations, direct phone lines, and glass markup walls. The renovation finished in June.
Newton staple 51 Lincoln has redesigned and renovated its 350-square-foot private dining room into a new concept called the Tasting Room at 51 Lincoln. Limited to just 20 people at a time, the space offers oft-changing five-course tasting menus. The space, which opened in July, is available for buyout, including on Sundays and Mondays when 51 Lincoln is closed to the public. The room comes with audiovisual capabilities.
For teambuilding or wellness-focused client entertaining, Barre & Soul has opened the first barre studio in Cambridge. The latest branch of the concept is a 3,000-square-foot studio centrally located in Harvard Square. Owner Andrea Isabelle Lucas can hold traditional barre fitness or yoga classes, or design a specialized class for private events. The space, which opened July 13, holds 75 people.
Formerly known as Estelle's, Cluckit was opened in mid-June by popular Boston chefs Brian Poe and Gordon Wilcox as a foray into piri piri grilled poultry, seafood, and meat. At the bar, guests can choose from 30 draft lines and another 70 beer selections available by bottle and can. The 1,500-square-foot South End space is available for semiprivate dining and buyouts of as many as 95 guests.
