Prima e Dopo

Don’t kill me. I’ve been here before a few times while waiting for a table at Reno’s but this time… look, I really wish I could write a better review.
It was our second wedding anniversary and we agreed on Rino’s totally being worth the two hour wait on a Tuesday. Being pregnant, I can no longer sit at Primo e Dopo and sip martini’s for hours while I wait but I can sample their culinary delights. Unfortuantely our server had other plans. Like standing at her point of sale system and play on her cell phone; or continously walk by us without asking us if we wanted anything. I started to get really hangry after about an hour of sitting there, husband waiting a good half hour to order another drink, and finally she came by to get him another so I could ask for a menu. I’m not usually so persnickity but I was even more annoyed when said menu was dropped at the table, without a word, all crumpled and gross. (The grilled calamari and bruschetta were delicious, however)
Of course I’ll be back because I have no choice. I love Rino’s and would gladly wait at the gates of Hell for a table so I can certainly put up with a crabby server and crummy service here but for crying out loud this shouldn’t be part of the experience. Hopefully next time will be better and I can update with a lot more positivity.

Went here while waiting for a flight at Logan. What a find! Good beers (stouts were awesome) and great food. It is located in the middle of a neighborhood, so you might think you missed it. Joseph (bartender) was friendly and gave great food advice.
If you like eggplant, theirs is «wicked good»… seriously. Good. Want some more. Mmmmmm.

Even if your not waiting for a table at Rinos, this place is definitely worth checking out.
Their meatballs are amazing, close to if not better than my 100% Italian Grandmother. Also the stuffed mozzarella. Yum! They have the option to get full or half order appetizers which is affordable and nice if you want to get a couple different ones.
They also had great homemade Sangria.
It’s not too big of a place but it seemed the turnover was pretty good. However a lot of people are waiting in there for 2 hours sometimes to get a table next store.

Love that this place opened to give you a place to wait until a Rino’s table is available. Strangely, it was empty the day we went, but the service was excellent. Our waitress was very sweet and attentive. Nice addition to Rino’s!

I come here for drinks before I go to Rino’s. Excellent service (Tammy is fantastic!) and delicious drinks! They have amazing cocktail specials. I get a new drink every time I go!

My husband and I stopped in while waiting for a table for dinner at Rino’s place next door. The name, which means «Before & After» is perfect for just that! I agree with other reviewers that it was a very wise decision for Rino’s place to have what is essentially a waiting area that serves wine, beer and great food. We order a couple of beers from their diverse selection and a half portion of the mozzarella en carrozza (essentially Italian grilled cheese, topped with a plum tomato sauce). It was delicious and a perfect size to hold us over while waiting. Our server, while definitely a no frills approach, was friendly and honest — an incredibly appreciated quality in a server! We will definitely be back!

A smart business decision for the restaurant across the street to start this bar up. With the restaurant usually having wait times of an hour or more this place was perfect to get out of the cold. The bartender and wait staff were definitely reminded you that you were in East Boston. Joseph made this New Yorker right at home. Also gave some good advice on what choices on the menu across the street. Drink prices were responsible and the house wine… which was on tap was good. Plenty of craft beer choices to pick from. Didn’t try any food but the food I saw coming out of the kitchen smelled just as good as it was across the street.

Went here after hearing that Rino’s place would have been a really long wait for a party of six. Unfortunately, four people ditched without telling me so I’m sure we could have gotten in. It was already 8:30 but the place was still packed. Prima e Dopo is definitely just a place to hang out and grab a nibble. It’s owned by the Rino’s people.
I had a huge goat cheese salad and a half order of fried eggplant for dinner. Only cost me $ 10! I didn’t expect the salad to be so big. It was slightly overdressed. I also found the eggplant to be a touch too bready. But hey, we got something to eat while waiting for Rino’s, so it serves its purpose.

This place was designed to be a glorified waiting area to get into Rino’s Place, it is across the street and the owners are the same. While you wait to get into Rino’s they will direct you here. They have a limited menu and drink list. I asked our server what he liked on the drink menu and he went on this rant about how he only drinks hard liquor straight up. Ended up getting a couple sangria’s, they were pretty good. We would have ordered apps but the hostess at Rino’s couldn’t even give us a rough estimate of how long our wait would be, this caused us to sit there for an hour without eating. Normally I would just order something anyway but if you aren’t done with your items within 10 minutes Rino’s will pass over your place in line, which would be a big problem if you just placed an order.

Last night I went there for the first time in about a year and Joe, the bartender remembered me and my boyfriend! He is super nice and honest and hard working. Always running around the bar getting stuff done. Rather than try and upsell us to spend more money on food he suggested getting the smaller portion of an appetizer we were looking at because we were going to Rino’s across the street.
I’m going to try and make it back in here before another year goes by, just to hang out, watch the bruins, and eat some delicious shrimp scampi bruschetta. Ohhh, I love seafood!

I have zero complaints about this place. I doubt anyone stumbles into here, unless they are waiting for a place at Rino’s. Service was wonderful and attentive, and they even brought our appetizer over to us as Rino’s because we were called before they could give it to us.
Service at Rino’s, especially their reaction to our pizza was NOT the same. If interested, please read my review on Rino’s as well.

Finally stopped by this place for some wine and appetizers (I wasn’t going to Rino’s just wanted some small plates and drinks). It was great — bartender was very nice and friendly, got the meatballs (yum!) and a thin crust pizza special that was excellent! very cute, cozy place to wait for Rino’s or to get a bite to eat!

Amazing food!
Although I live in NY, I come to this place every time I am in MA.
Lobster ravioli and seafood linguini = AMAZING!

Cute bar across from Rino’s. Apparently this is the place to wait if you’re trying to get dinner at Rino’s, but we just came in to have a couple glasses of wine. Friendly service, nice atmosphere and wine on tap… can’t beat that.

It is tough to find a good beer in East Boston (they’re wine drinkers, you know), but Prima e Dopo has an outstanding and changing beer list due to the very enthusiastic bar manager who loves beer and input from patrons. It is a comfortable place, serving as warmup for dinner at Rino’s but also as a nice, neighborhood bar. The wait staff are friendly, informative and attentive. Of course, the food, though limited, is outstanding. I favor the margharita pizza which is very flat and crispy and yummy and perfectly compliments the beer. And the prices are reasonable. Hands down, this is my favorite spot in the City.

An excellent venue to wait out the time until your table is ready at Rino’s across the street. How smart are they to take over this property and provide appetizers and drinks before dinner, and dessert afterwards? Rino’s owner himself said he was trying to solve the problem of people waiting in line outside his restaurant, and this was the perfect solution. We sat at the bar and enjoyed a couple of drinks, including a special concoction thought up by the bartender that was not on the menu. When we were called on the phone that our table was ready, we only had to walk about 20 yards, if that.
My only complaint is I wish it was a little bigger; not too much bigger or it would lose some ambiance. Other than that, this place is genius!

Oh Rino’s, weve tried to visit you twice without any luck. First time was my fault because I didn’t realize you opened at 4 on Mondays but the second time, yesterday, I was SO hungry I just couldn’t wait.
We arrived at Rinos on a Monday evening around 5:30. I just had a scan at MGH and wasnt allowed to eat beforehand. I was starving. Rinos asked for our phone # and that they would call us when a table opened, and to go across the street to Prima e Dopo for a drink while we wait. I cant drink on an empty stomach, so I had an iced tea, but the mixed drinks coming from the bar looked great. We waited for about 30 minutes before I told my husband that I couldn’t wait any longer for our table at Rinos, I needed food NOW. We decided to eat there, we already had a table, so why not? The menu is small, offering pizzas, bruschetta, shrimp scampi, shrimp cocktails, Italian chicken wings, etc. They have special dishes and drinks written on a giant chalkboard on the wall. I had eggplant in a pink pesto sauce (yum!), my husband had the Italian chicken wings. We both enjoyed our dishes, my husband described the chicken wings as ‘intense’ because of the marinade, which was heavy on the balsamic vinaigrette. If you like balsamic, this dish is for you — I don’t mind it, so when I finished off my plate, I had a couple of his wings and thought they were good. I could tell our server was busy, but she was nice and as attentive as she could be.
For our two dishes, two non-​alcoholic drinks, and a shared dessert, our bill was about 30 $, not including our tip. I thought that was very reasonable, and a nice surprise since we were expecting it to be a little higher.
Because there is no waiting area inside Rinos, opening Prima e Dopo across the street was genius on Rinos part. Its a comfortable and casual place to sit and have a drink or a bite to eat while you wait.

Owned by the same people as Rino’s Place, we were very satisfied with our drinks and the shrimp scampi bruscetta — Highly recommended!!! The flavors are incredible!
Great place to hang out for a quick bite — or if you are starving and waiting to eat at Rino’s.

So this place is owned by Rinos next door. Rinos is a special place, and worth the wait however, while waiting our two hours for a table we decedied to have a drink here at Prima e Dopo. We find a single round table in the back that has no chairs, no big deal, we can stand. We order a round of drinks and in the middle of enjoying our beverages a sloppy server comes over to us and asks us to leave said table so he can serve some other people who are drinking and eating food. I understand you have a set number of tables but this is absolutely unacceptable just so he could get a larger tip. Shame on you Rinos for allowing this to happen in your place next door. If I was the owner/​manager this server would be fired. So now we leave and don’t return.

Ended up here on a rainy Friday night when a couple of friends and I decided to finally bite the bullet and have dinner at Rino’s after having spent years living in Eastie without actually having been. To be honest, I was sort of averse to the idea of having to go anywhere that came with an automatic three-​hour wait: for me, as cozy as the eventual dinner might sound, I could get just as cozy on the couch with take-​out lo mein and sweats. (Don’t judge me.) I was sort of unsure about the entire prospect, but I decided to brave the weather and walk over to put my name in for a table, then camp out at Prima e Dopo and wait for my companions to arrive.
First thought: Whoa, wait, where did this place come from?
Second thought: «Before-and-after-Rino’s» concept aside (which, as we say in the business, is wicked smaht), this place is cool enough to stand on its own as a swanky little neighborhood bar. The feel is modern, yet comfortable: couple of small tables along the windows across from a spacious bar, some really comfy-​looking banquettes, crowded up a little after eight or so, but if you’re there after making an early enough res at Rino’s, getting seated shouldn’t be a problem.
Drinks-​wise, they’ve got wines on tap, Sam Adams Brick Red and Peroni draughts, everything you want from a spot like this… except a full liquor license. Not as much of a problem as you might imagine, though: first of all, the cordial license is actually a bit more in the spirit of a place like this (pun not intended), as it’s more of a «sip on something and relax» sort of environment than a «WOO SHOTS BRO» kind of place; second of all, the cocktails that they’ve come up with to compensate for the fact are actually pretty inventive — a slightly sweet version of a Manhattan made with Southern Comfort and cherry brandy is a tasty (if not quite as stiff) take on the original.
Food-​wise, it’s almost the opposite of its sister establishment in its approach to light Italian-​esque bar fare. This will require further research, but if you’re spending three hours waiting for a table across the street and you want to avoid the temptation to gnaw your hand off while staring across the bar, you could definitely do worse than a fairly substantial order of roasted pepper and goat cheese bruschetta to tide you over until those lobster ravioli.
All in all? The kind of establishment I could definitely see myself at more often, even if I’m heading home for dinner anyway.