Barlette, a small bar located in the Arcade Building in Coolidge Corner, opened originally in 2023 as a BYOB bar.
In November of 2024, the bar decided to add the “B”: its owners announced that they had received their liquor license, and switched to being a cocktail bar.
“We thought it was kind of funny to open a BYOB bar, because what does that mean?” said Emily Vena, owner and barkeep of Barlette. “It was an experiment and it went well and people especially loved it for private parties, when they could bring their own. But it just came to a point where we wanted to reconcept to take it in a different direction and reach a larger audience.”
The changes Barlette has made have been well-received, Vena said.
“You put something into the world and you don’t know how people are going to react, and we want to give them what they want or what works, so people have been very kind about our changes,” said Vena.
Barlette and its sister establishment upstairs, the “experimental boutique restaurant” Cobble, have proven Coolidge Corner to be a great location to engage with the community and test restaurant and bar concepts, she said.
Barlette’s comprehensive and creative drink menu, cultivated by Vena, is influenced by her culinary background. Most drinks are customizable with the liquor of your choice, and many of the drink names come from a love of wordplay.
“I like to cook the bases for the cocktails and really just use what I know about flavors and seasonality and locality when I can, to produce a dish in a glass,” she said.
One of the most popular drinks is the ‘Apple-al Fritz,’ a spin on the Aperol Spritz.
“I fresh squeezed apple juice and then mixed in some of the spirit-free bitter liqueur that I have, and then citrus as well, some orange and such, because I was playing on the aperol spritz.The classic aperol spritz has olives, so there’s a little olive juice in there to bring out the bitterness and sweetness in the drink,” said Vena.
Barlette featured a special menu for a Queer Trivia night on June 11. The drink titles were strewn with puns: ‘We’re Here, We’re Beer, Get Over it’ and ‘AndroGINous & Tonic,’ to name a few.
Barlette is queer-owned and woman-owned, and aims to create a space that is safe, warm, and welcoming for members of the queer community, according to Vena, who is also working on an idea for a queer singles night.
“It’s important to me for queer people to feel like there’s a cool cocktail bar for them to go to,” she said.