The Ear Inn

The building at 326 Spring Street went up in 1817 as the home of tobacco merchant James Brown, and by the 1890s it operated as a tavern serving the sailors and longshoremen who worked the nearby docks. During Prohibition it ran as a speakeasy called The Green Door; a group led by Rip Hayman bought the place in the 1970s and covered part of the "B" in the old bar sign so it read "Ear," a nod to Hayman's music magazine. The live band the Earregulars still plays regularly, and the kitchen serves mussels, meatloaf and confit duck legs alongside the burgers regulars keep ordering.