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This Allston bar is offering free hot dogs for life – if you dedicate a tattoo to them
The Silhouette Cocktail Lounge offers a deal — get a tattoo, and you’re entitled to one hot dog per visit. More on Boston.com.
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Want free hot dogs for life? They can be yours if you commemorate a tattoo to an Allston dive bar.
Last week, the Silhouette Cocktail Lounge, better known as the Sil, offered a new deal for its customers — get a tattoo related to the bar, and you’re entitled to one “Sil Dog” per visit.
Blair Hu, a master’s student at Boston College, was the first to rise to the challenge. There’s just one problem. “I’ve never stepped foot in there,” he said.
Hu saw a TikTok about the offer, and booked an appointment at Ghost in the Machine Tattoo in Brighton. He was drawn to the Sil’s logo — a rat with angel wings drinking a beer.
“When opportunity comes knocking, you have to answer,” he said. “And I’m sure [the hot dogs] are great.”
Hu with his new tattoo, the Sil’s unofficial logo. Courtesy of Blair Hu.
Sarah Leib, the general manager of the Silhouette Cocktail Lounge, has been working with the bar for 10 years. the Sil came under new management in February, she said, and in anticipation of the reopening, an employee designed a sticker that became the bar’s new unofficial logo.
Months later, a regular approached the bartender with the same rat across her forearm.
“She had been coming in for a long time, and she asked for a free drink in honor of her tattoo,” Leib said. “We obviously said yes.”
With the reopening came new offerings like hot dogs, which were introduced on the menu in mid-September. While they were selling a “decent amount,” Leib said, the Sil’s PR rep suggested creating a promotion for them, and the ink offer was born.
The promotion has attracted both regulars and first-timers like Hu. Leib said she’s gotten multiple calls from tattoo artists asking about the parameters of the promotion. She keeps it open, she said — anything related to the Sil on a PG-13 body part.
The promotion’s recent popularity has made the bar expand the offer. The 100th person will be entitled to unlimited hot dogs for life, as opposed to one per visit.
While Hu hasn’t taken advantage of the free food just yet, he plans on visiting this weekend to “give the hot dogs in question a taste test,” he said.
For those unwilling to go under the needle, “Sil Dogs” ordinarily go for $3.50, and $1 on Wednesdays until 9 p.m.
Leib said the promotion is so that anyone who may enjoy the bar — which has been an Allston institution since 1965 — can show their Sil pride.
“This place has been around for a long time, and people have been coming, as have their parents before them,” she said. “I don’t know if [the deal] will get more people coming in, but it keeps people coming back.”
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