Tupper & Reed
A cocktail list laid out like an opera program, in the building where John Tupper and Lawrence Reed sold gramophones from 1906. A working gramophone still plays in the room upstairs.
Why go
The music store closed in 2005. That was one year short of a hundred.1 Future Bars opened the bar in the building on 25 February 2015, under Brian Sheehy and Doug Dalton. The same group runs Bourbon & Branch in San Francisco. They laid the cocktail list out like an opera program and put 70 drinks on it. Prices ran $6 to $11 that night.1
They named the upstairs room after Polly Armstrong. She ran the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce and remembered going to Tupper and Reed as a girl to listen to records.1 That room holds the gramophone and a collection running from the 1890s to the 1930s. Parties of up to eight can book it. Downstairs is The Stage, a walk-in bar with a shorter list. Upstairs is The Balcony: reservations only, full table service, the whole menu.
One thing has changed since opening. Sheehy said in 2015 the bar would serve no food. He expected to be a waiting room for Angeline's Louisiana Kitchen next door.1 Angeline's now cooks for the bar itself. They serve Creole and Cajun at the counter, 5pm to 9pm, Tuesday through Sunday.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: a classic off the program, then whatever the bar has built for the season. Happy hour runs Tuesday to Friday, 5pm to 7pm.2
- Avoid: a quiet table on a music night. Bands play Thursdays and a rotating lineup of DJs and bands covers Friday and Saturday.2
What locals & experts say
- Berkeleyside NOSH, 25 February 2015: on the pricing worry the neighbors raised, Sheehy said
The price of a cocktail in San Francisco is pretty insane,
and set the Berkeley list lower on purpose.1 - The Berkeley Historical Plaque Project, quoted by Berkeleyside: the building
features clinker bricks, wood beam ceilings, slate roofs, balconies, fanciful decorations, and a monumental fireplace.
1
Good to know
- Booking: The Balcony takes reservations for two to eight. The Stage does not.
- Pool: free all night on Tuesdays.2
- Getting there: Shattuck at Bancroft, two minutes from Downtown Berkeley BART.
Verdict
could-visit — The one substantial source is Berkeleyside's opening-night report, and it is good on everything except the thing that matters most. It has the owners, the building's history with dates, the room layout and the pricing argument. It has nobody tasting a drink, because nobody had yet. Eleven years on, I have no critic's line on a drink here to point you at. Future Bars is a real operator with a real record in San Francisco, and that record plus the building is what this rung rests on.