Twelve stools, no reservation. Six tables, thirty days out.
Oyster bar and fish house on Fore Street. Thirty-four seats, a board that follows the boats. Kitchen closes at 9:45.
Doors. The raw bar is empty and Dana is still shucking the day's first tray. If you want a stool and a conversation with whoever is behind the bar, this is the hour.
It starts filling. Four or five stools left by 5:30 on a Friday, more like eight on a Tuesday. Tables are gone by now unless someone cancelled.
Full. Expect thirty to forty minutes for a stool and we will take your number rather than make you stand in the doorway. There is a decent bar two doors down.
The first table turn goes out and the bar starts moving. Genuinely the best time to walk in, and most locals know it, which is the only reason we are telling you.
Final table seating. The bar keeps taking people as long as there is a stool. If something on the board has run out by now it is not coming back tonight.
The stove goes off. Raw bar runs until ten, so oysters, clams and a drink are still on. Nobody is going to rush you out; we just cannot cook you anything.
Closed Sunday and Monday. We do not take a reservation for the raw bar, ever, including for you. Twelve stools with a list on them stops being a bar. Tables open thirty days ahead at 9am and the Friday and Saturday ones go the same morning.
What came off the boats today.
This board is written at four o'clock and it is the whole menu argument. If it is not on here, it was not landed, and we are not going to buy it frozen so it can be.
Five boats, four of them we have bought from for more than six years. When the weather keeps them in, the board is short and the price does not go up. We just run out earlier.
Four bays on the ice tonight.
Every lot of shellfish carries a tag by law: harvester, water, date. We keep ours for ninety days like everybody else, and unlike almost everybody else we print what is on them.
A dozen mixed is $42 and Dana will pick the order for you to eat them in, which sounds fussy and is the difference between a good dozen and a wasted one. Mignonette, cocktail and horseradish come with; there is no charge and no upsell.
How to actually get a seat.
Two completely different systems for two halves of a very small room. Knowing which one you are playing is most of the battle.
Walk in. That's the entire system.
No list, no app, no reservation, no exceptions. Turn up, and if there is a stool it is yours. Four o'clock and after seven-thirty are the two windows where there almost always is one.
If it is full we take your mobile number and text you. Most waits at six are thirty to forty minutes; we will tell you honestly if it is going to be worse than that, because we would rather you came back Tuesday than sat resenting us in a doorway.
Solo diners get seated fastest. Two is easy. Three or more at the bar is genuinely hard and you should book a table instead.
Thirty days out, 9am, online.
The book opens at nine in the morning, thirty days ahead, one date at a time. Friday and Saturday tables go before ten the same morning. Tuesday and Wednesday you can usually get within the week.
Tables seat two to six. We hold every table for two hours and fifteen minutes, which is enough and is not a trick to turn you.
We text the morning of. If plans change, cancel from that text. It takes one tap and it puts a table back for somebody who has been refreshing this page for a fortnight. Two no-shows and we stop taking your bookings, which sounds harsh for a thirty-four seat room and is exactly why it is necessary.
Thirty-four seats and one person shucking.
Dana Whitfield spent nine years on the line in Boston and opened The Narrows in 2019 because she wanted to cook fish that was landed the same day and could not do it anywhere that seated two hundred. She is behind the raw bar most nights. If you have questions about what you are eating, ask her; it is the entire reason the bar faces the way it does.
The room is loud, the floor is old, and the tables are close enough that you will hear the conversation next to you. There is no music after seven because there is no need for it. We have two high chairs and a step-free entrance from Fore Street, and the bathroom is accessible.
We do not do private hire, tasting menus, corkage, or anything at all on Sunday and Monday. Those two days are how the other five stay good.
Book a table, or turn up at half seven.
Six tables, thirty days out, opening at 9am. If nothing shows for the night you want, the raw bar does not take bookings and never fills entirely. Come at four or after seven-thirty.