If the Kong's beer choices don't satisfy you, walk to the middle of the Square and pop open the doors of the Wursthaus (4 JFK St.). The 'Haus has two entrances, conveniently located on either side of the Varsity Liquor Store, and about a million tables at which you can get a drink. Most impressive is the array of beers. You'll find a menu stocking more than 200 beers, including some from countries that probably don't have a word for "hops." Down Mass. Ave the other way you'll find Chi-Chi's (1001 Mass. Ave). Chi-Chi's is about as Mexican as the Wursthaus is German, and on a good night you can get a margarita with some alcohol in it, some free nachos and a quiet enough place to have a real conversation with people.
If it's scenery you're after, then head over to the Boathouse Bar (56 JFK St.), which features preps, Business Schoolers and lots of crew paraphernalia. A long walk up Mass. Ave. will take you to the Plough and Stars and Jack's (952 Mass. Ave.) These two rarely see a Harvard student, but you might want to try them for a change of pace.
On the entertainment side, live bands play consistently at Jonathan Swift's on JFK St. Swift's features deadhead rockers and blues musicians. Doors stay open until 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. Passim, in the alley between the two halves of the Coop, doubles as a restaurant by day and features folk artists and acoustic guitarists by night. If you don't mind a short hike up Cambridge St. to Inman Square, you can hear live jazz at the 1360 Club.
At some point or another, you'll want to venture beyond the world of Harvard's dimly lit cafes. There's lots of dancing to popular new wave music and techno-pop bands at the newly opened Man Ray (21A Brookline St.). It's connected to a gay night club next door so you'll find a mixture of men dancing with m.n. women with women, and men and women. If you want more emphasis on the band than the dancing, check out The Channel.
A last stand for strictly hardcore punk is Chet's (across the street from the Boston Garden). It spotlights mainly local bands. Good visiting New York and L.A. bands usually hit. The Rat (528 Commonwealth Ave.) in Kenmore Square (on the Green Line).
BOOKS
Where there are cafes, there are intellectuals. And where there are intellectuals, there are books. This relationship is most marked in Harvard Square, where there are books stores in every nook and cranny. Ask most Bostonians where to find big heaps of the printed word, and they'll point in the direction of the Square.
The Square's 27 new, used, and specialty book stores dot most corners and fill at least three basements. For textbooks and general reading, your best bet is to start with The Harvard Coop. The Harvard Book Store (1256 Mass. Ave) stays open till 10 p.m. every night except Sunday. It carries new titles and used books at half-price downstairs. For more mainstream new books, there's the Paperback Booksmith (25 Brattle St.). Reading International (47 Brattle St.) is also good for late-night shoppers and offers a huge selection of magazines and a mixture of popular and scholarly titles. Wordsworth (30 Brattle St.) rounds off the Square's general reading book shops.
For those who crave book-hunting adventures and are not disposed to claustrophobia, there are several used book specialists with popular and obscure titles. Aisles are narrow here, but lighting at McIntyre and Moore Bookshops (30 Plympton St.) is enough to allow reading. Fairly academic volumes line the shelves, and it sports large literary criticism, philosophy and medieval history sections. Across the street is the Starr Bookshop (29 Plympton St.) nestled in the east end of the Lampoon Castle. It's got two floors of mostly scholarly texts.
If you get tired of Plympton St., head over to The Book Case (42 Church St.). Look in the six-by-six foot "Room A" for occult books, "Room B" for religion, and go to the store's Annex (33 Church St.) if you don't like reading in the dark. The Pangloss Bookshop (65 Mt. Auburn St.) is another sure bet for cheap used books, especially in the social sciences.
For Marxist and Third World literature, check out Revolution Books (1 Arrow St.). Schoenhof's Foreign Books (75 Mt. Auburn St.) recently opened at this expanded location. This foreign language buff's paradise will send away for rare titles, just as the Grolier Book Store (6 Plympton St.) will take special orders for poetry books.
Publications on sixties-style spirituality, religion and the occult can be found at Shambhala Booksellers (58 JFK St.). Sky light Books (111 Mt. Auburn St.) and the Daws Here Book Store (99 M. Auburn St.)