The Dugout's $550,000 License Outlived the Bar

On January 8 the Boston Licensing Board approved moving a liquor license from the Dugout Cafe to a restaurant chain's Seaport address. The Dugout was a bar on Commonwealth Avenue. What the Dugout sold was the paper, and the paper was worth a lot.

That is the argument here, and it is ours: in Boston the dive bar is partly a licensing artifact. The cap on licenses turns an old bar's permit into a tradable asset, and the asset can leave even when the bar cannot. Everything below is sourced, and the conclusion is labeled as opinion.

What the Dugout was, and what bought it

The Dugout opened in 1934. The Globe says it received among the first liquor licenses issued after Repeal in December 1933.

The buyer was Earls Kitchen + Bar, which Boston.com says describes itself as upscale casual dining. The Dugout's menu, by the same report, was bar food, popcorn and draft beer. Those are about as far apart as two places that pour alcohol can get. The license did not care.

The price is the part to sit with. An attorney for Earls told Boston.com the license carried a price tag of $550,000. Boston.com puts that close to market for the tightly restricted all-alcohol licenses sold privately in Boston. The new Earls is slated for 157 Seaport Blvd. in 2027.

The bar did not own the room

Here is the detail that turns a sad story into a structural one. The Globe reports that a Boston University spokesperson confirmed the college owned the property. The Globe says the bar sat under a BU housing building. The university deferred further comment to the business owners.

Here is our reading. The stools were never the asset. The paper was. Without the property, the license was the part of the business that could move. Bostonia says the owner inherited the place from his father and that the father had inherited it from his longtime boss. We do not know why the owner sold, and neither did the Globe, which wrote that the reason for the sale was not immediately clear. Do not read a motive into the sale.

Why that paper is worth that much

The scarcity is covered in full in why your block has no bar, so here is the short version. Mayor Michelle Wu told lawmakers in 2023 that a full license was going for $600,000-plus. The Dugout's figure sits just under that.

Now compare the license a new bar can get. The 2024 state law created 225 new licenses, and the city says 198 are neighborhood licenses that cannot be sold to another business. Only 12 of the 225 are transferable. A law firm's summary of the board's rule says a beer and wine bar that trades up gets a license that cannot be sold, assigned or transferred.

So the city is building a new system in which the paper stays put. The old system, the one that produced the Dugout's license, lets it travel. That is our arithmetic on the rules, not a city statement. It follows that the old bars hold something the new bars cannot be given.

Even the smaller paper has value. A law firm's client alert on the board's rules says a bar that upgrades keeps the underlying beer and wine license, value included. The people who write the advice treat a license as a balance-sheet line.

Where the paper goes

It goes where the foot traffic is. Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune described licenses bought from Jamaica Plain and similar neighborhoods, landing in the Seaport. The Dugout's license went from Commonwealth Avenue to the Seaport, which fits her description.

The Licensing Board does review each move. The city lists how many licenses already sit nearby as one factor in its public need test. That is a review of the destination. Nothing we found says the board weighs what a neighborhood loses when the old bar goes.

What a dive bar hosts that a chain will not

The Dugout was not only a place to drink. A comedy group called the Mendoza Line ran a show there, and in its farewell it described a cozy little show in the back room that had run for 12 years. The group said its upcoming shows would be held elsewhere. A back room that hosts a regular show is a small piece of nightlife infrastructure, and it left with the paper. Our guide to comedy clubs and open mics covers rooms that kept theirs.

How many real ones are left

Luke O'Neil wrote a book on Boston's dive bars 15 years ago. The Globe quotes him estimating roughly 120 true dive bars then. For today he says there may not be 20. Those are one writer's counts, not a census.

Bostonia names other losses: Durgin Park, Jacob Wirth's and Doyle's. The author it quotes blames soaring real estate prices. That is a different cause from the license. Both can be true: rent squeezes the bar, and the license is the exit.

One more note on sources. Boston.com wrote on January 13 that it was not immediately clear if the bar had closed. Bostonia, two days later, said it closed abruptly in early January without a final night or last call. The second is the later report.

What to do with this

Treat the ones still open as time-limited. Our guide to five Boston dive bars is the list to start from, and The Silhouette Lounge in Allston posts weekday hours of 4pm to 1am, so check the bar's own page before you go. Nothing in this piece says any bar on our list is for sale.

Go for a drink and a conversation, pay your tab and tip, and decide the ride home before you sit down. Last Train at /last-train/ shows your line, and Eat Late has food for the walk to it. For what else a license does, see why Boston closes at 2 AM.