WTF we're here to do.

Rebel Rebel is a no-rules natural wine bar in Somerville's Bow Market. We give a fuck (about wine and about you). We believe a wine bar can be a place for the community to engage, grow, and communicate. We also believe in the power of natural wine to bring us back to the foundations of our connection to farmers, to women, and to the planet. Think that sounds like a bunch of woo-woo bullshit? Come hang out and let us show you what we do. 

Some nitty-gritty.

We’re a bar.

We don’t take reservations. We don’t have a full menu (but our cheese plate from Formaggio Kitchen is bomb, our olives are salty, and our olive-oil-fried potato chips come all the way from Spain). We don’t do flights or pairings, but we’re happy to taste and chat you through whatever you’re curious about. We’re a small bar, so don’t roll through with your whole office unless you’re cool rubbing up against each other (even Carol). Except in summer, when we share an ENORMOUS outdoor space with our Bow Market neighbors, in which case our capacity is like 700. (Want to book that? Email us via the events tab.)

We also have the best wines we can get our hands on, badass woman and non-binary bartenders who know a thing or two about a thing or two, more than a decade of experience in natural wine, and a no-bullshit attitude that guarantees you’ll get the best of what we’ve got, no matter what.

Leave your misogyny, your homophobia, your racism, your classism, your ableism, your patriarchy, your gender bias, and all your other bullshit at the door.

Rebel Rebel has instituted a non-referral hiring policy. This means that we will not give employment preference to friends and family of team members. Employment opportunities will be posted publicly via social media, community bulletins and relevant industry job sites. As an equal opportunity employer committed to shifting our current racial demographic, we will prioritize BIPOC candidates for all available positions.

How does Rebel Rebel intend to step away from organizational white supremacy without participating in tokenism, as a white-owned business?

Rebel Rebel is committed to both passively supporting BIPOC (and other non-dominant communities) through fundraising and no-fee space-sharing, and actively supporting those communities—through lobbying, public policy support, and community organization. We are also committed to responding to feedback from BIPOC and other non-dominant communities about necessary improvements to our space, our practices, and our team. When called upon to make adjustments, we will do the work to explore how we need to evolve in service to equity without burdening the communities asking for change with stewardship of our education. 

How does Rebel Rebel define tokenism?

Tokenism is the practice of inclusion for the sole purpose of creating an appearance of diversity without engaging in active work to dismantle oppressive systems that are barriers to equity. Rebel Rebel acknowledges that tokenism serves only to assuage white guilt and is not a meaningful step away from white supremacy. 

Third, we recognize that physical access to our space from what we see as the Boston area’s unofficially segregated neighborhoods makes it difficult for us to be a realistic place of employment for many BIPOC and POC. In order to remove this barrier to access, we will offer travel compensation for any hired employee living more than 2 miles away. As public transportation is often burdensome, travel compensation will include car service fees from Lyft. Travel compensation will be in addition to equitable wages—not taken out of wages. Long-term, Rebel Rebel is committed to working with the state in the development of public policy to improve transportation access for restaurant/bar industry workers, whose long shifts at late hours make access to jobs requiring public transportation impossible. 

Fourth, we recognize that our industry is in its very essence extremely problematic. Wine is a luxury product historically consumed primarily by white, upper-class men. Rebel Rebel’s work to dismantle race, class and gender access to the wine industry remain at the core of our mission statement.

Finally, we intend to maintain our practice of wealth redistribution, but adjust the direction of its output. In 2019, we donated approximately 30% of our net income to organizations supporting abortion access. We will continue to focus our distribution efforts to organizations that benefit survivors of intimate partner violence, reproductive rights access, and the queer community.