Mothership, a Family-Friendly Restaurant Full of Comfort Food, Lands in Cambridge

Mothership. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

With hearty portions of chicken “tendies,” a 1990s throwback chocolate lava cake, and shuffleboard, Mothership is open in Cambridge, down the street from Alewife MBTA station. It’s an approachable, fun venue that feels like just what the neighborhood needs as more buildings go up and more residents and workers pour into the area.

Mothership comes from Steve “Nookie” Postal and Liza Shirazi, the duo behind Revival Cafe & Kitchen, a growing group of local cafés. (The original Revival is in the same building as Mothership; the two spaces are seamlessly connected.) Local diners may also recognize Postal from his Kendall Square restaurant Commonwealth, which he closed late last year after a decade-long run—keep an eye out for former Commonwealth staffers at Mothership.

Mothership. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

The restaurant looks a little different from the early-2018 vision the team had planned (yep, it’s been a long road)—a beer hall with 10 “highly curated taps,” plus food and games like shuffleboard, Ms. Pac-Man, and Golden Tee. (No pinball—Postal hates pinball.) The shuffleboard made it into the final plan; “it’s here and rocking,” says Postal. That’s it for games at the moment, although Shirazi muses about the possibility of having some sort of boardgame corner for the kids one day. There’s beer, sure—the opening menu includes selections like a Notch Czech lager and a Lamplighter IPA—but Mothership is definitely a restaurant, not a beer hall. And there’s an exciting cocktail focus, too.

Mothership’s crispy taro chips with harissa hummus. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Just a few months into the pandemic, Mothership was completely built and ready to go. But COVID understandably delayed the opening—and in the interim, inspired the landlord to make some changes to the layout of the building, which included moving around the not-yet-open Mothership and Revival, which had been operating in the building since 2018. All’s well that ends well, and the team is happier with Mothership and Revival’s natural-light-filled spaces at the front of the ground floor now—previously, they were farther back, facing the bike path behind the building—but the process meant gutting and rebuilding from scratch an entire finished restaurant and moving an operating café. This industry is not for the faint of heart.

“I think the timing was meant to be the way it went,” says Shirazi, adding, with a laugh, that the empty Mothership space was “the nicest employee break area in Cambridge” for a while.

Mothership’s pappardelle with butternut squash, shaved Brussels, roasted mushroom, crunchy garlic, and parm. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

In any case, at the very end of 2023, Mothership landed. The welcoming space features colorful murals by local artists Mia Cross, Sharon Swan, and Chloe Rubenstein. The menu is meant to be approachable, and many dishes can accommodate dairy-free, gluten-free, and/or vegetarian or vegan diets. The space and overall concept are essentially “built for flexibility,” says Postal, with different areas that can be sectioned off for events.

The idea is to be an all-day space serving “what the neighborhood is looking for,” he says—whether that’s coffee and breakfast in the Revival space or full-service lunch, after-work snacks, or dinner at Mothership, or private celebrations, from baby showers to Bar Mitzvahs. There are mocktails and cocktails; there are nostalgic desserts; there’s a kids’ menu with the classics (those chicken “tendies,” grilled cheese, buttered pasta, etc.). And Postal knows the neighborhood well: He’s a longtime resident of the area but can’t remember ever turning past Summer Shack, down Cambridgepark Drive, until recent years, now watching its evolution with the addition of so many new buildings and people.

Mothership’s double burger with cheddar and jack, LTO, pickles, and “very special sauce.” / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

“We’re just trying to serve honest, approachable food for the neighborhood,” says Postal. “I feel like there’s something on there for everybody—you can come in with your coworkers after work and share some things, but not too awkwardly.” (The “shareables” section of the menu includes options like fried four-cheese ravioli; crispy taro chips with harissa hummus; fried pork dumplings; and crab dip with grilled focaccia and celery.)

Postal predicts that the burger will be a bestseller, a duo of smashed patties with cheddar and jack cheese, pickles, lettuce, tomato, onion, and “very special sauce,” served on a potato roll. Other entrees dubbed “fancy” on the menu—with the quotation marks—include steak frites (it’s a good winter for steak frites); an earthy pappardelle with butternut squash, shaved Brussels, and roasted mushrooms; and a hearty vegetarian option, stuffed acorn squash with brown rice and quinoa, golden raisins, broccoli, harissa vinaigrette, and crispy onions.

Mothership’s Fluffernutter pie with peanut butter cream, Fluff, strawberry preserves, and caramel peanut rice crunch. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

And then there’s dessert. Postal’s particularly excited about “That ’90s Lava Cake,” a molten chocolate cake with vanilla bean ice cream and raspberry, a throwback to his time working at Icarus in the South End in the 1990s, where they served a popular molten cake for two. “I know it’s dated and passé,” he says, “but people still like it. You put it on the table, and everyone will eat it.”

Mothership dovetails with its café sibling by way of an intriguing selection of cocktails and mocktails infused with coffee and tea. The Jas Flute, for example, infuses gin with jasmine tea and jazzes it up with lemon juice, vanilla syrup, and bubbles, while the Beantown caffeinates vodka with espresso-infused demerara syrup, plus almond milk. And as Greater Boston is getting increasingly more enthusiastic about mocktails, Mothership delivers with five on its opening menu, including the refreshing 2 Step: coconut water, matcha, honey, and lime cordial. (The mocktails do make for delicious cocktails, too, notes Shirazi—feel free to request the addition of a shot of your liquor of choice.)

Many of Mothership’s cocktails and mocktails are infused with café-inspired ingredients, a nod to sibling café Revival, like this matcha-based drink. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Opening a long-anticipated restaurant is surely enough work, but Postal and Shirazi are also on the verge of debuting three new Revival locations: Watertown on January 29, Lexington in March, and South Boston later in the year. (The Alewife one is currently joined by two spots downtown—one open to the public, one private for people in a particular office building—and one in Somerville’s Davis Square.)

As the Revival-and-Mothership empire continues to grow, and the team grows with it, Postal and Shirazi are proud of the workplace they’ve been building, citing employee perks from 401k to gym memberships, not to mention making sure everyone actually uses their vacation days and sick days without guilt. “Especially the last two years, we’ve really been emphasizing the culture more than anything else,” says Shirazi. “At this point in our careers, if we don’t have a positive work culture, it’s not worth it. We really preach work-life balance, and live it, and make sure our staff has it, or else we all just run ourselves into the ground, and that does no one any good.”

Steve “Nookie” Postal’s special glass collection. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

For Postal, it feels different than when he opened Commonwealth a decade ago—more sustainable, more support to actually make that work-life balance happen—and the same goes for Shirazi, who cofounded Harvard Square’s now-closed Crema Cafe in 2008. “It’s a hard business,” says Postal. “Make it enjoyable so it doesn’t ruin your life.”

Mothership. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Mothership accepts reservations via OpenTable and offers free parking in a garage across the street (follow signs for Revival’s parking.) Also coming soon: the debut of lunch service and the opening of a sizable patio. 125 Cambridgepark Dr., Cambridge, 617-665-5899, mothershipalewife.com.

A version of this story was published in the print edition of the March 2024 issue with the headline, “Mothership Lands.”