Glou, a cocktail and wine bar that has operated on Ives Street since 2022, served its last drinks on Feb. 28. The bar announced its closure in a Feb. 25 Instagram post.
“This space was a dream of mine and has and will hold so many incredible memories,” Glou co-owner Emory Harkins wrote in the post’s caption. “We’ve seen four years of graduations. We’ve had engagements, book launches (and) anniversaries.”
According to Harkins, the bar’s closing follows his decision to relocate to New York City and resulting inability to oversee Glou’s future operations. “I was ready for a change,” Harkins wrote in an email to The Herald, adding that he was born in Providence and moved back in 2018. “It was just time to leave again.” All of the bar’s items were sold at a garage sale that began on March 3.
“This motley, pirate crew team of people at this bar that had come as a result of different experiences in Providence,” said Halle Bourne, who initially handled bar preparation and later oversaw the bar’s menu. “I am incredibly close with all of my co-workers. I respect them immensely. I have a great relationship with them.”
Glou’s ceased operations after the closure of several other local restaurants and bars. Tallulah’s Taqueria, a restaurant also based on Ives Street, closed in February. Vegan food hall Plant City also closed its Providence location earlier this year.
After undergoing a period of transition in 2025, management was “trying to find, still, our vision of what the bar was,” Bourne said. When they found out the bar was being sold, they initially hoped that someone else would buy it and continue Glou’s operations. “That's very unlikely to happen in these situations, and it didn't,” Bourne added. Now, “all of my coworkers are now without jobs.”
According to Bourne, while the bar’s closing will have no “hard-hitting effect” on the community given its brief presence, the “loss of any place in Providence in the restaurant community, it always echoes and reverberates because of how deeply connected the industry is here.”
On the bar’s closing night, regulars packed Glou’s small space to celebrate the business and its employees. Ava Filiss ’25 MD’29, who went to the bar on her first date with her partner, returned for a final visit.
“We try to go at least once a season (which is roughly how long until their drink menu rotates) and the sentimentality of it is the most important part to me,” she wrote in a message to The Herald. “When Glou sold their furniture after they closed, we managed to buy the table where we sat on our first date. I’m happy we get to keep a part of the bar with us.”
Fillis enjoyed Glou’s creative cocktail menu, as well as the “different atmosphere” from other bars on College Hill. “Glou is such a special place,” she added.
Maddy Almonte, another Glou patron, enjoyed the “cozy and inviting” atmosphere of the bar where she could sit with friends and chat for hours. “It felt like a true labor of love,” she added.
In an email to The Herald, Harkins wrote that Glou was a “space without pretense, a safe space to gather, a place to call home, hold community events, laugh, cry, fall in love, remember.”
“I don’t necessarily hope for legacy, but for memories,” he wrote.
Laila Posner is a senior staff writer covering business and development.
