After more than a yearlong hiatus, Toad music bar in Cambridge will soon be back, now under the same ownership as The Burren and The BeBop.
Toad will continue to offer a cozy space for live rock, jazz and blues music in Porter Square.
“You’re not there to get drunk … you go in there to enjoy the music and have a nice time and talk to friends. And it’s nice to have a drink in your hand at the same time,” Peadar McCarthy Giles, the manager of Toad, told Boston Public Radio on Friday.
Giles is the nephew of Tommy McCarthy and Louise Costello, owners of The Burren and The BeBop. They’ll also be reopening Toad’s sister restaurant Christopher’s as an Irish pub named McCarthy’s.
Toad and McCarthy’s are scheduled to open on Jan. 24.
In addition to food and drink, McCarthy’s will have a space for Irish music sessions. The music-pub combo has become a family specialty. It arose, in part, out of a desire for more spaces to hold Irish music sessions.
When Tommy McCarthy arrived in Boston in the 1980s, he said the only traditional session was held at the Village Coach House in Brookline, which has since closed. Eventually, McCarthy and Costello opened The Burren, where there are now multiple sessions a week. But they are not the only ones anymore — there’s music every night at other pubs across the city.
“There’s like ten sessions in Boston on a Saturday alone,” McCarthy said.
Toad and McCarthy’s in Porter Square will add to a network of musical venues that span the Charles River. From The BeBop near Berklee College of Music; to the Plough and Stars and Cantab Lounge in Central Square; to Club Passim and The Sinclair in Harvard; and finally, The Burren.
“There’s that trail of music all along from Berklee to Davis Square,” McCarthy said.
