The Lincoln

*sad face*
My local watering hole is now closed.
The owner has sold this place, but it’s a good thing for him he says.
While happy for him, sad for me. Booooo, no more stumbling home from Moody Street anymore (oh who the hell am I kiddin’? I’ll still be stumbling home, but now it just means I have to go up further! *mad face*)

So this past Thursday I headed to The Lincoln (great name by the way, just sounds cool to me) to check out my brother’s band play. What a cool little spot. Definitely an interesting façade that isn’t really indicitive of what is inside. The place is small, so be prepared to be cramped on a busy night. The service was great. Friendly, attentive and fast. Good TVs for checking out the game. If I was a Waltham local this would be one of my favorite spots to just chill and have a cold beer.

This small spot is a keeper. The servings were great for the price (we got 2 beers and a Rum&Coke for $ 10!).
*Looks like it might be an «L“word club from the exterior… but it a great little bar once you’ve entered.
*Good spot for a bunch of friends, but tricky to hang onto your coat in the winter (I was at a high-​top table this winter and between the drink, the table height, the crowd, and the partially tippy table… it was hard to keep my coat on the back of my chair).
*Is «Wheelchair Accessible»…but not recommended due to table heights (you’ll be looking at everyone’s back pocket all night).
*Fantastic service (the bartender actually notices every person and makes sure to make rounds).
Great little hide away — probably a good midweek spot!

A friend and I tried to grab drinks here after work on a Thursday. It was completely closed and their voicemail message didn’t list the hours of operation. We just went across the street to Tempo. Lincoln’s loss.

A coworker set up a group outing to go here after work. The web site listed a limited menu, but we decided it was good enough. We walked into the Lincoln and one of the girls mentioned to the bartender that we were hoping for dinner, to which he replied, «Oh really? What are you going to eat?»
We left and got Thai food instead.

Definitely a cool place to have some drinks. Prices were about right and the bartenders were really friendly. I had their raspberry infused vodka and it was damn tasty.
The house band was good but the place is small so it was nearly impossible to have a conversation over the music. Thankfully I was drunk and had no problems YELLING ACROSS THE TABLE!!!

What’s cool about the Lincoln is you never know what you’re gonna get. Sometimes it’s an older quieter crowd, sometimes it a college crowd, sometimes it’s packed for a band, sometimes it’s perfect to watch a game. That being said, you can kind of plan for what to expect. Thursday nights they have their house band, The Phil Pemberton Group. These guys are great. But like every other band, very loud in the building. Friday nights they generally have bands too and sometimes on Saturdays.
The bar is on the small side, one of those hallway type rooms. The décor is cool, old Seltzer bottles, old pictures on the walls, posters of jazz greats, etc. There really is not a place like this anywhere else in Waltham. In the evening there is a large free parking lot behind the building, which is great. You should really check it out for yourself.

My husband’s band played here last summer. It was definitely a cramped place to see a band (and it was even more cramped for the band!) but the atmosphere is nice and the bartenders are nice as well.

A more appropriate rating would be «Incomplete». I came in here on a weeknight and it was completely empty save for two people at the end of the bar who were either friends with the bartenders or extreme regulars.
They had a great selection of premium scotch and the atmosphere was nice, but it’s hard to judge a place when it’s so empty. I’ll have to give it another try on a different night.

What you say? A semi-​hipster bar hidden on Waltham’s Moody St? The apocalypse, it is nigh.
This is my favorite bar in Waltham, by far. It’s good enough that I don’t feel embarrassed inviting my friends who live in Boston to come and partake of its libations.
First things first: it’s not really a beer bar. It’s more of a martini bar. You come for the specialty mixed drinks: raspberry martini (they make their own raspberry vodka), dark and stormy, pomegranate cosmo, and more.
The interior is clean and well-​decorated, and the bartenders are super awesome and always willing to chat. The owner tends bar sometimes, too. Also they have one of those internet juke boxes that can download almost any song you want (I grabbed an obscure Tribe Called Quest B-​side once). Those things will suck the dollars out of you real fast.
There are still a few downsides. Almost every Thu/​Fri/​Sat there’s live music. Which is great, if you like live music (and I’ll admit their house bar band every Thursday is actually pretty good). But the place is so small that you really can’t have a conversation when a band is playing, which means you pretty much have to come *for* the music on those nights.
Plus, the place gets a tad crowded, although it’s mostly on the weekend nights that I avoid anyway.
All in all, though, it’s hard to go wrong with the Lincoln. Despite its flaws, I think it deserves 5 stars for being so excellent in a sea of otherwise not very excellent bars.
EDIT: They have DJs now some nights. I would recommend you call and make sure nobody’s playing on a given night if you actually want to carry on a conversation with someone.