Boston’s First BYOB Restaurant Is Here

Boston’s licensing board granted approval for the city’s first bring-your-own alcohol license, ushering in a new era of opportunity for restaurants. Roslindale’s Seven Star Street Bistro is the first restaurant in the city to receive approval for a so-called BYOB license, according to Universal Hub, as a new initiative goes into practice that is designed to help smaller restaurants without alcohol licenses draw in customers.

The new rules for such licenses were announced in January, as previously reported. Restaurants that want to offer BYOB options to customers must fit a handful of requirements. For one, they cannot have a liquor license already, and they must be located in neighborhoods where a limited number of licenses are available. (Restaurants in some high-traffic neighborhoods are not eligible to apply.)

The licenses cost $400, as the Boston Globe reported, and are a substantially cheaper alternative to full licenses that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The BYOB licenses apply only to beer and wine, not cordials or hard liquor. Customers over 21 will be permitted to bring in wine bottles and beer bottles or growlers (up to 64 ounces per person) between the hours of 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. Restaurants granted these BYOB licenses will also have to train their staff on alcohol service.

Seven Star Street Bistro has trained its staff and will implement the new measure immediately, per posts on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

• Boston Gets Its First Legal BYOB Restaurant [UH]