Boston’s Hottest New Cocktail Bar Just Opened Inside a Mall Food Court

The mall food court may not be the most obvious place to swing by for inventive cocktails from one of Boston’s top bar teams, or a glass of wine from a list curated by a master sommelier and alum of Boston’s vaunted steakhouse Grill 23 & Bar, but C-Side Bar is hoping to change that perception.

Ran Duan, of Blossom Bar, Birds of Paradise, and Baldwin Bar fame, has teamed up with Jon Rosse, also of Birds of Paradise, and Brahm Callahan, the corporate beverage director for the upscale Himmel Hospitality Group (Grill 23 & Bar, Harvest, Bistro du Midi), to launch C-Side, a new bar at CanalSide, the renovated food court inside the CambridgeSide mall in East Cambridge.

Wait a minute, the mall? Yep, that’s right. “We wanted to be able to do something that reflected [Ran’s] brand, and my brand, but in a place that maybe you wouldn’t think of seeing us,” Callahan says.

Walk into the newly re-launched food court as of October 25, and you’ll find over a dozen food vendors lined up around the perimeter. The businesses are familiar, well-liked local chains: Mexican restaurant Chilacates (opening soon), Sapporo Ramen, Mediterranean grain bowl go-to Anoush’ella, and others.

CanalSide

Right in the middle of the food court lies C-Side Bar, which serves all of the alcoholic drinks in the space. (This sets it apart from a food hall like High Street Place in downtown Boston, where some food vendors also serve their own beer, wine, and cocktails.)

On C-Side’s cocktail menu, Duan, Callahan, Rosse, and their team are leaning into ‘90s mall nostalgia. That translates into playful drinks like the Miami Vice, made with rum, coconut, and pineapple and topped with a pink-hued salted strawberry daiquiri foam, and a Fruit Salad Negroni with gin and Campari tossed with grape, pear, and Honeydew melon. Much of the cocktail list at C-Side is batched or kept on draft to quickly serve crowds of customers at the food court. It’s a new environment for the Blossom Bar and Birds of Paradise team, which is known for building elaborate cocktail-making stations inside tiny, 30- to 40-seat spaces.

On the wine side, Callahan curated a menu that ranges from $10 glasses of Pinot Grigio to $495 bottles of Champagne. In other words, this isn’t your typical food court beverage service. However, Callahan is betting that they’ll attract a range of customers with money to spend, from biotech workers to residents in nearby luxury real estate developments, who are looking for more places to eat and drink in the neighborhood.

CanalSide is one of just a few new food and beverage spots in the area, joining other newcomers like acclaimed Cambridge chef Will Gilson’s all-day cafe Amba and a second location of Brazilian coffee shop and breakfast spot Bōm Dough. Callahan’s hoping to reach people who don’t yet have a go-to cocktail bar or spot to buy a great bottle of wine in the neighborhood. “There’s a lot of people that live here and a lot of people that work here,” Callahan says. “And as this [area] gets developed, [we want people to] hang out here, have a nice glass of wine and make friends and be part of the neighborhood.”