Best happy hour
We have statewide regulation 204 CMR 4.03 to thank for the fact that, here in the Commonwealth, we can't get a discounted bar drink - that "happy hour," as most humans understand it, does not apply to us. Nowhere will we find a watering hole with a sign outside celebrating cheap beers for a couple of post-work hours. A dusty formality left over from the days of brothels and bartering? From the age of Prohibition, perhaps? Nope. It was passed in the 1980s by the pint pikers who feared it would promote binge drinking. Here in Boston, we eat for cheap during happy hour instead. And Grendel's Den, in Harvard Square, has the happiest happy hour around, according to Phoenix readers year after year. Every evening from 5 to 7:30, and from 9 to 11:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, buy a $3 drink and have anything on the menu half-price. Nestled underground, Grendel's is a cozy hollow, a place that feels as though it belongs to another time, a time when such teetotaling regulations weren't yet in effect and more than just the food came cheap.

Though there's only one Grendel's, you can find McCormick & Schmick's watering holes all over the country, and two in Boston. With 30 to 40 types of seafood offered daily, M&S is an treasure-trove for lovers of the denizens of the deep. And its happy-hour special is a treasure-trove for lovers of the cheap: from 4 to 6:30 p.m. and 10 to midnight, there's a $1.95 menu at the bar, where you can indulge your fishy fervor with steamed mussels in garlic-chili broth, and clam shooters, as well as enjoy more-typical pub fare, such as quesadillas, chicken wings, and bruschetta. It may be a national chain, but M&S prides itself on freshness - so much so that its menu changes twice daily, depending on deliveries, which include Atlantic salmon from Casco Bay, Chilean sea bass, and Idaho rainbow trout, to name a few. And freshness doesn't stop with the fish: even the fruit juices are squeezed in front of you.

Grendel's Den, 89 Winthrop Street, Cambridge, (617) 491-1160, www.grendelsden.com; McCormick & Schmick's, Park Plaza Hotel, 34 Columbus Avenue, Boston, (617) 482-3999, and Faneuil Hall, Boston, (617) 720-5522, www.mccormickandschmicks.com.