What do you do on a Sunday night in Somerville when you want something warm and a little indulgent but can’t face another trendy minimalist dining room with four-word menu descriptions and a 90-minute wait? I go to Trina’s Starlite Lounge on Inman Street, and I have been doing so for years.
The place sits on a residential block in Inman Square, which is technically Somerville but feels like the scruffier, more interesting cousin of Cambridge. The building is narrow and unpretentious, with neon signage and a bar that takes up a good chunk of the front room. There’s a back dining area that fills up fast, so if you go on a weekend without a reservation, you may be waiting at the bar — which, honestly, is not the worst fate. They make a genuinely good cocktail. The Starlite Sour has been on the menu for what feels like forever, and I still order it most visits.
The food is what people call comfort food, but that label undersells it. Chef Suzi Maitland runs a kitchen that takes diner classics seriously without winking at them ironically. The fried chicken comes out crispy and properly seasoned, not drowning in some unnecessary sauce. The biscuits arrive hot and flaky, and I will not entertain arguments about whether to eat them. The cheeseburger, which you can get until late on weeknights, is thick, juicy, and served with fries that are properly salted. These are things that sound simple until you go somewhere that gets them wrong.
Brunch is the other draw. They do a solid eggs Benedict, but the french toast — thick-cut, usually with some seasonal element — is what I keep coming back to. Weekend brunch is busy, and the room fills with the specific energy of people who stayed out the night before and are now ordering Bloody Marys without a trace of guilt. It suits the place perfectly.
Prices are reasonable by any Boston standard. Most dinner entrees land between $18 and $26. Brunch plates are closer to $14 to $18. The cocktails hover around $12 to $14. You will not leave feeling robbed.
The service has always been friendly without being performative about it. The staff know the regulars, and after a couple of visits, you start to feel like one. The music tends toward classic country and soul — not loud enough to shout over, but present enough to set a mood that actually works.
What keeps me going back, beyond the food, is that Trina’s feels like a bar that happens to have excellent cooking rather than a restaurant that installed a bar to meet the moment. That’s a distinction that matters. It’s the kind of place that earns loyalty not with a clever concept but by consistently delivering something warm and genuine on an ordinary Tuesday night, which is harder than it sounds and rarer than it should be.
If you’re coming from the T, the Red Line to Central Square and a ten-minute walk east is the easiest approach. Street parking exists but requires patience. Go hungry, go a little early if you don’t have a reservation, and get the biscuits before they’re gone.
