Virtually everyone on the streets of Harvard Square and sipping a drink at Somerville’s Diesel Cafe have a powerful phone in their pocket capable of taking a virtually endless number of free high-resolution digital images.
Many of them, regardless, are paying to line up and wait for chemicals to produce a few indelible images they can hold in their hand: The photo booth is back. The Memory Shop, an entire photo booth shop, is trying for a soft opening Saturday at 36 John F. Kennedy St. in Cambridge. (On Friday, workers were working furiously to get ready a space still filled with sawhorses, drop cloths and construction dust.) When done, there will be various photo area with backgrounds, props and themes to pose in with friends – a more intimate take on the Go Pixel Yourself experience that came to the CambridgeSide mall in 2021.
It’s the second to be opened by Brian Cheung – the first, on Newbury Street in Boston, draws some 2,000 customers weekly, around 40 percent of them being tourists, he said – after being inspired during a trip to Vietnam.
“On the street there were 10 photo booth stores, and I thought this was crazy. We ended up going to every single one,” he said. “And that’s where I was like, ’This would be such a great idea, it would be so much fun to bring this to Boston.’ I assumed that all the Bostonians and even tourists would love it. Especially in the heart of Boston, on Newbury Street. And now we’re bringing it to Cambridge, and I’m very excited about that as well.”
The location in Harvard Square, at the Garage mall, is a personal one for Cheung, who has memories of visiting the area in his childhood.
“We wanted to encapsulate the oldest style of Harvard Square,” Cheung said. “I know Harvard isn’t that vintage anymore, but back then that’s just how I felt it, so that’s what we’re trying to bring.”
Diesel Cafe, at 257 Elm St., Davis Square, boasts a traditional, vintage, analog photo booth that disappointed customers for eight years as it sat broken and unusable. Wesley Landson, a regular customer and now owner of the Instant Photobooth repair service, reached out and offered to fix it. “I heard about the booth at Diesel that had been out of commission, so I started bugging the baristas and anybody that would talk to me over there about trying to get it running, and finally got some traction,” Landson said. “That was actually my first dip-n-dunk photo booth.”It was a daunting task, with wiring bugs and issues with the billing system. The booth needed to be fully recalibrated, and the camera and transmission had to be taken apart and cleaned. Landson was there for more than a week.
For him, though, there’s something about the analog photo booth that makes it more than just another repair job. “It’s also an incredible process, it’s way different than a digital print or looking at your phone,” Landson said. “It’s kind of magic, it’s a cool thing.”
It’s believed to be one of only two “dip and dunk” analog photo booths in the state, Landson said.
“There’s a fair amount of work that goes into regulating the chemicals and making sure the photos come out looking good,” said Jennifer Park, one of Diesel Cafe’s owners. “It’s a little mini darkroom inside that photo booth.”
Diesel’s photo booth represents some of the cafe’s history: The photos display on the front of the booth are of employees from over the 15 years it was in service. The revitalized booth has been extremely popular with customers at $8 a visit, and has even gone viral online. “We certainly did not expect such an overwhelming response,” Park said. “I think it’s just an increasing interest in vintage, analog items – and it’s super cool.”
On Friday, Samantha Marian of Albany, New York, made the trip to Boston for a birthday treat – and the Diesel photo booth was on her itinerary after spotting it on TikTok. “It’s a three-hour trip,” Marian noted, though the journey wasn’t solely for the photo booth.
The four-frame photo strip popped out for Marian after five minutes of development. She liked the images – its rich black and white – even more than expected, she said.
She was followed by Molly Potts, a new transplant to Somerville from Western Massachusetts, and visiting friend Maggie Coen. They were used to the photo booth at Thornes Marketplace in Northampton, the second “dip and dunk” booth in the state (and where the experience is three dollars cheaper) and gushed over one at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that makes a downloadable gif in addition to printing out physical images – fun even if it cannot be cut up for the scrapbooking done by Potts’ and Coens’ friends.
They also liked the images from their trip to Diesel. “Super cute,” Coen decreed.
“Every photo that you get out of there is amazing,” Park said.
Memory Shop, like Diesel’s photo booth, indicates a resurgence in enthusiasm for a vintage aesthetic, Cheung said. The shop charges $8 for two strips, as well as a digital copy, sleeve and stickers, so “the value is really there,” he said.
His machines also supply the same gifs as the ones at the Philadelphia museum, which he agrees people love.
Still, “I think it’s that physical copy that people really enjoy,” Cheung said. “Those are super popular now, like film photos, bringing back all the older things that we used to enjoy.”
The Harvard Square location of Memory Shop offers free photos to the first 200 people in line on opening day.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.