First-time restaurant owner’s teaching background prepped her for new career

Rebekah “Bekah” Barr is used to chaotic environments. The former teacher, unlike some of her peers, used to love field trip days for their unpredictability.

“Field trip days are crazy,” said Barr. “Kids are running around. They’re screaming. They’re touching things. You’re trying to count heads to figure out where they all are, and I love that.”

Now you can find Barr chasing plates instead of children at Margeaux, Supper Parlor in Cambridge, where she made her debut as a restaurant owner in September. The restaurant is in the Porter Square Hotel at 1924 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge.

Barr told MassLive how teaching prepared her to run a restaurant, whether it’s dealing with angry customers who “have a lot in common” with 12-year-olds or putting together a menu rather than a lesson plan. Now that she works in a more-controlled environment, Barr feels confident in her decision to switch careers.

“I do feel fulfilled because I feel like this is very much like that, especially on a busy Friday or Saturday,” Barr said. “There’s a lot of high energy and chaos and momentum, but it’s all going in a great place.”

The restaurant world has also allowed Barr to be more creative, as opposed to the world of education where she felt, “very small and inside a square box.”

“Being a teacher, you’re making a lot of decisions by yourself and there is that accountability, which makes it very scary and there’s a lot of pressure,” she said. “With running a restaurant, there’s always a team. And I’m lucky to have a really great team.”

While this is Barr’s first time owning a restaurant, industry experience started long before Margeaux existed.

Barr’s love of cooking sprouted from growing up on a blueberry farm in Exeter, New Hampshire, where fresh food was always a staple of her childhood.

“My parents had this massive garden in the backyard and they grew all of our own vegetables,” Barr said. “My grandmother has a goat farm now and she’s in Lee, New Hampshire. She makes her own cheese and fudge.”

At age 14, Barr started working in fine dining during her summer vacations. She continued waitressing while studying education at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee and often visited New Orleans, Louisiana. These environments helped Barr fall in love with private events and got her acclimated to Southern cuisine all while she taught sixth and seventh graders.

Barr, who currently lives in Everett, moved to Boston in 2019, where she taught for two years as part of Teach for America.

In 2020, she launched her cocktail kit company called “&Cheers,” which Barr still runs. She contracted bartenders who were out of work during the COVID-19 pandemic to create cocktails based off popular Netflix shows such as “Tiger King,” “Ozark” and “Bridgerton.”

Barr later started showing people how to make the cocktails over Zoom while she worked full-time for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). As the business grew, Barr started looking for a physical space to host the private mixology classes.

But she never thought about owning a restaurant until she was told to think bigger.

“A very dear family friend, Cliff, told me you need to have three horses in the race. You should have a space that has food and drink and private events,” Barr said. “So I started looking for a restaurant in November 2022.”

However, Barr initially struggled to find a space. Landlords were constantly rejecting her because Barr didn’t officially have a track record running a restaurant. She also had few connections in the restaurant world and said being a woman in the industry was a big barrier. After about a year-and-a-half of searching, things fell into place.

“It all came together though with a broker that I met, Krista, she’s amazing,” Barr said. “We met by chance.”

The broker called Barr randomly one day and told her to come tour a restaurant — the former space of Colette Wine Bistro — the next day. Barr showed up and fell in love immediately.

“I walked into the space and I was like, ‘This is beautiful,’” she recalled. “There’s so much opportunity here and it’s been a labor of love ever since then.”

Barr purchased Colette Wine Bistro in March 2024. She spent six months learning how to run a restaurant before Margeaux officially opened on Sept. 16.

The restaurant fits about 158 people with 115 people in the dining room, 13 bar seats and 30 outdoor patio seats. There is also a private event space that can be closed off from the rest of the dining room.

Barr wanted the restaurant to introduce Southern cuisine to more people in the Boston area, and created a menu inspired by her New Hampshire upbringing as well as her college years.

“Some of the things I love most about the South, and about my time there, is the warmth. And it’s the warmth of the people. It’s the warmth of the food, the comforting nature of southern cuisine,” she said. “There are some similarities here in New England, but I think we could learn … to take on more of that warmth, both in our cuisine and also in our restaurants.”

Margeaux’s South-meets-New England vibe is reflected in its upscale Southern comfort food. The menu comprises multiple shareable plates, including shrimp and Boursin grits, deviled eggs with crispy fried Maine oyster and grilled smoked pork chop with Gruyere mac n’cheese.

Barr chose this style of dining because she felt that it has been growing in popularity in the Boston area. She also said it inspires diners to try things they wouldn’t normally try by seeing what others at their table are eating.

“I do want you to be a little selfish to put exactly what you want on your plate,” she said. “It’s all about you having exactly what you like, and trying as much as you can.”

Guests are encouraged to order several dishes from different or similar collections. Aside from giving diners the freedom to try as much as possible, Margeaux’s concept is intended to make people feel like they are eating with their families on special occasions.

“I didn’t want to create a menu that was pretentious or that had ingredients and descriptions that no one knew what was in the dish or what to expect,” Barr said. “I wanted someone to come in and look at all of these things and feel special. Feel like the dishes themselves are special, but they’re also approachable, like holiday meals with the family.”

Meanwhile, every one of Margeaux’s drinks was inspired by the food menu. Cocktails include a Oaxacan in Memphis — a riff of an Oaxacan Old Fashioned — made with Memphis barbecue bitters, sweet maple, notes of apple and garnished with beef jerky.

Then there’s the “Lady Cherry” — a seasonal take on Douglas Anrah’s “porn star” martini — made with tequila, cherry, warm amaretto and a sparkling wine chaser on the side.

Margeaux also offers wine pairings with every dish. The wines were selected by Margeaux’s wine director, Brandon Farrell, who tasted every item on Margeaux’s menu to ensure each dish had the perfect wine counterpart.

“He’s brilliant at what he does,” Barr said of Farrell.

This effort has helped Margeaux sell more wine than when the restaurant was actually a wine bistro, according to Barr.

“We have a lot of people who come in, they have a cocktail, appetizer, share with the table and then they just dive right into the wines and the entrees,” she said.

Given the successful launch of Margeaux, Barr is still coming down from the craziness of opening a restaurant for the first time.

“I think I’ll get to a point within the next few months where I’ll stop and reflect on everything that’s taken place and it’ll feel real. But when you’re in the middle of chaos and a thousand different things going on, there isn’t really that mental space to even reflect like, ‘oh, this is a big deal,’” she said. “Every day it’s just putting one foot in front of the other.”

Once she feels more settled in the space, Barr intends to keep fueling her newfound creativity by hosting more private events with personalized touches for guests, such as special mocktails for soon-to-be mothers and holiday menus.

“Creativity is the next step,” she said with a chuckle. “Creativity and private events.”

People can get a taste of Barr’s creativity by booking their own event or by visiting Margeaux, Supper Parlor for breakfast, brunch or dinner. More information about hours of operation can be found on the restaurant’s website.

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