A (Last) Beer At...Holiday Cocktail Lounge

The Holiday Cocktail Lounge on St. Mark's Place in the East Village was the first New York dive bar I frequented on a regular basis, and the first New York dive bar I fell in love with. My habit was to visit Theatre 80 St. Mark's, a revival house across the street, see a double feature of old films, and then walk across the street to talk about the movies over a beer or two.

On Saturday, Jan. 28, the bar closed for good, after nearly 50 years. I paid the joint one last visit and wrote up the experience for Eater. It turned out to be a memorable evening.

A Beer At...Holiday Cocktail Lounge

Amy Winehouse was the balladeer of choice to the raucous mourners at theHoliday Cocktail Lounge last night. She was played twice within a half hour of my taking a seat at the old, beaten, horseshoe bar.

"This is the best night of my life!" shouts the louche young woman a few stools down. It's the third time she's said it. "Can we smoke in here?" The bartender, Jeff, a sane, seen-it-all fellow, shakes his head. "What? Is the Health Department going to shut you down?!" yells the woman, laughing. "It's all over anyway."

What she means is the Holiday, a beloved dive on St. Mark's near First Avenue,will close its doors for good on January 28. The owner has sold the building, beer-seasoned floor, memories and all. Everyone is the low-ceilinged, basement bar knows it, and they've been drinking many toasts to the joint's health.

A slack-jawed young man so drunk he can no longer speak gestures Jeff over. He'd like another beer, and a shot. Shot of what? "The green bottle," he muttered. Jeff points to the bottle. "This?" he says, disbelieving. I look at the man, who is sitting next to me. "That's vermouth," I say. "I like vermouth," he mutters. Jeff pours. "I've never seen that," I say to Jeff. "Me neither." This puts me in the mood for a shot, so I order a Jameson. Jeff likes Jameson. He pours two and has one with me.

Back on the other side of the bar, there's an argument about who invented pizza, the Italians or the Chinese. "Putting shit on flat bread does not make it pizza!" one man argues. "Give me a cigarette before I put my tongue in this woman's mouth," says the louche young woman. People are too slow on the draw, and the women lock lips. Jeff smiles appreciatively. "You're a lucky man," he say to the louche woman's boyfriend. "I tell myself that every day," he answers.

A raven-haired a few stools down is telling the story of when she woke up to find "Holiday Cocktail Lounge" written on her forehead. "You fell asleep on the bar," said Jeff. "I told you if you did that again, I'd write HCL on your head. What I wanted to do was draw eyes on your eyelids."

Jeff seamlessly slips out and is replaced by a second bartender who seems to be as loaded as his customers. He loves the bar and is not happy about the sale. More Jamesons are poured out in sloppy rows and people snatch them up. "What the hell," says the bartender. "It's all over." People start to leave, each saying "See you tomorrow" as they do.

I take a last tour of the bar. The Christmas decorations are still up, lending a celebratory tinge to the sad reality that hangs in the air. The wooden phone booth still has a dial tone. The tables between the booths, lit by sconces that were perhaps once fancy, are covered with empty pint glasses. A flat-screen TV is on, but nobody is watching. On one wall is a print-out of a narrative by the Holiday's founder, Ukrainian immigrant, Steven Lutak. "Our bar counter is in the shape of a half circle," he said, "like the table at the United Nations. People from many countries meet here. Also their money goes farther here. The price of the drinks must be the lowest in Manhattan." Lutak started the Holiday in 1965. The space had been a bar since 1936, and, according to the unhappy bartender, was a speakeasy before that. Lutek died in 2009. His son sold the building for $4.2 million.

"For what?" a drinker next to me has asked earlier in the night. "What can you do with all that money? $4 million goes pretty fast. This building would make money every day!"

I look up from the narrative and the bar is empty. I'm the only one there. Through the open doorway, I see people scuffling on St. Mark's Street. The sparks of a butt skitter across the pavement. The bartender and other members of the U.N. have gotten into a full-fledged brawl. I step outside. The night is cool and damp. "What, are they five-year-olds?" asks a man watching from the sidewalk, the only barfly not fighting.

Every night at the Holiday should end with a street fight. Rest in peace, sweet dive.

— Robert Simonson

A Beer at...Lucy's

My latest column at Eater, a classic dive in the East Village with a classic East Village hostess:

A Beer At...Lucy's

The heart of Lucy's, an Avenue A dive that has somehow held back the tide of East Village trendiness, is Lucy. She's a small woman about three times the age of the kids she serves. She had a puffy, light-brown coiffure that sits awkwardly on top of her head, and talks in a high, piping voice of an Eastern European songbird. She cheerfully takes orders, none of which are particularly difficult (beer, shot), and doesn't seem to have a mean bone in her body, probably because she doesn't pay much mind to the antics of her patrons.

The hipster-doofuses who populate the bar seem to get a kick out of Lucy. "Hey, Lucy! You like this song," said a young barfly, a juvenile delinquent smile on his lips, a PBR in his hand. It was "Cocaine" by Eric Clapton. He may as well have been asking Lucy if she had Prince Albert in a can. "What?" tweeted Lucy, distracted, smoothing out dollar bills plucked from the old cash register. The man asked twice more, intent on his joke. Finally Lucy paused and took a listen. "Yes. Yes. I like this song," she piped. She then took the TV remote and turned up the volume on the AMC presentation of "Young Guns."

The bar's facade is so warped with age, it looks like it might fall flat to the sidewalk at any moment. I believe it's held in place by the recently installed ATM machine. Getting past the often-locked metal gate is harder than at most dives. Lucy opens when she opens. It varies from night to night, but don't try coming before 7 PM. She also takes a ton of vacations, seemingly whenever she feels like it. Aside from her annual visit to her native Poland every August, don't be surprised to find the bar closed for a weeks at a time, without warning, any given month of the year.

Inside, there are two pool tables, a long old vaguely Art Deco bar, and an unintentional circle theme made up of round mirrors and round spaces where mirrors used to be. I've never seen so many bottom-shelf bottles prominently featured on the top-shelf shelf as I did at Lucy's. But the beer selection, in bottles and on draft, is surprisingly large and decent. A couple newer draft lines, hiding over near the window, draw on hipper craft brews like Goose Island. Their location seems to silently ask the question: "Who would drink this stuff when you can get a Bud?" Behind the bar, near the door, there's a glass-doored cabinet of tchotchkes. China cups and such. It's the kind of thing you'd see at your grandma's place. 

—Robert Simonson

A Beer At...McLoughlin's Bar

Don't say I don't suffer for my work. To write this column, I had to sit next to the know-nothing, loudmouth, blowhard barfly of all time for a solid hour. It was painful. The bartender, however, was completely charming.

A Beer At...McLoughlin's Bar

"Don't be too successful," said the sage with the load on at the end of the bar. "It's not the Irish way. It's egotistical." The Colleen next to him gave him the same Am-I-Really-Sitting-Here-Listening-to-You stare she'd given him all night. It was the look of an opinionated woman who's only tolerating your bullshit because you happen to be the pal of her boyfriend. The boyfriend was smartly not mixing in. He just looked on with a big open grin, thoroughly enjoying himself.

The McLoughlin family have not taken the sage's advice. They've made a nice go of their small Astoria pub for 46 years. Their generosity might have a lot to do with that long run. Since 1965, they've laid out a Thanksgiving buffet on the night before Turkey Day. It's open to all, free of cost. A free dinner is also offered on one other calendar date. As to that day, I'm only going to say: this is an Irish pub. You figure it out.

The pre-holiday showdown doesn't mean McLoughlin is shut down on Thanksgiving. They'll be open. (They're open 365 days a year.) If you've got nowhere else to go, and are in the mood for a bucket of Little Kings for $10, come on in. You'll be served by a kind-faced bartender with the gentlest Irish brogue and the cleanest white shirt I've ever seen. Even the sage is welcome. "You should read Francis," he said. "Francis Bacon?" asked the Colleen. "No. St. Francis of Assisi." The Colleen said she wasn't the religious sort, and didn't put a lot of stock in a book written 2,000 years ago by people she know. Did he know who wrote it? "It was divinely inspired," he replied after some hesitation. "You're a smart man," she told him. "You're smart. But I don't know how much sense you got."

"We haven't had a real President in the White House since Teddy Roosevelt," said the Franciscan, launching into politics. "Teddy. Not Franklin Delano. Obama is an idiot. He was once asked what his favorite baseball team was. He said, since he grew up in Hawaii, it was the Oakland A's. So he was asked who is favorite player was. He said, uh, ah, um. He couldn't name one! He looked like an idiot. Now, if George W. Bush had done that, it would have been news all over. Take away his teleprompter, Obama isn't that smart. Before he was elected, he didn't work a day in his life. My father always said, don't trust a man who hasn't worked a day in his life."

"But," said the Colleen, "you're unemployed!"

—Robert Simonson

You never where people are going to fall on certain issues. When this column came out on Eater a week ago, I had regular readers attack me for voicing even the slightest support of Coors Light. Meanwhile, respected bartenders took me to task for knocking Coors Light. 

A Beer At...Connie O's Pub

There are two taps at Connie O's. One says Coors. One says Coors Light. They both draw Coors Light.

"I know it says Coors, but it's always Coors Light," said the blonde woman behind the bar with the careworn face. If you want something else, there's Bud Light in bottles. If you want something other than that, go find another bar.

"$1.50," said the woman. $1.50? I looked at my watch. 9 PM. Not happy hour. I laid down two soft, crumbled dollars and got two quarters back. Hell, Coors Light ain't worth much, but it's worth that.

The woman retreated to her high, cushioned chair under the television. "You want to watch something else," she asked her two customers, an unsmiling, unmoving woman wearing a pony tail and a blank stare, and a sweatshirt-wearing retiree who had spread a bunch of dollars on the bar to make sure the mugs of Coors Light never stopped coming. The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree ceremony was suggested.

The channel was switched on both the TVs behind the bar, but to two different networks. So the program was never quite in sync. What Al Roker chirped on one set, he chirped three seconds later on the other. A Mariah Carey-Justin Bieber Christmas video premiered. 41-year-old new mother Carey, dressed in fur-lined Santa mini-dress, all but did a lap dance for the virginal Bieber. No one at the bar blinked, though the ponytail did say, "She just had twins." Michael Bublé lent his harmless head tones to "Silver Bells," back up by a African-American sextet. "Who's that singing with him?" asked ponytail. Roker said. "Naturally 7" repeated the bartender, "whoever the hell that is." "Who they singing with?" asked the retiree. "Michael Bublé," said ponytail, somewhat surprised. Pause. "Who's that?" said the old man.

"You got a tip at the end of the bar," the retiree informed the bartender. "No, that's Byron," she corrected. "He's coming back." Byron did come back. He didn't have long to walk to get to the end of the bar, where he sat alone and said nothing. Connie O's is a snug joint, with low ceilings and a very short, but very old, wooden bar. Video games, a pool table, and boxes and boxes of Coors Light make the Greenpoint dive seem even tighter than it is. And two small windows at the front give the room a bunker-like feel.

But Connie O's is not without spark, especially this time of season. The owner goes all out with the Christmas decorations (as, apparently, she does for every holiday). The lights in the lanterns are red and green. A shelf opposite the bar is laden with Santa and Snowmen statuettes. Lights and tinsel are everywhere you look. Even the bricks outside are painted green (they're always like that). It's damn cheery. As far as real holiday spirit's concerned, Connie and Rockefeller are pretty evenly matched. 

—Robert Simonson

A Beer At...The Pig 'n' Whistle

My latest Eater column:

A Beer At...The Pig 'n' Whistle

The way Irish pubs crowd the Theatre District, you'd think that George M. Cohan and his fellow Hibernians still dominated the New York stage as they did in the first decades of the 20th century. One of the oldest is the Pig 'n' Whistle, which, the sign says, was founded in 1969. This is one of a handful of bars in the City that go by that name, most under the same ownership. It was founded by John Mahon, who ran an Irish music hall in London, and Peter Magee, who owned a bar in the Bronx, also called the Pig 'n' Whistle. The website brags that the original location was in a W. 48th Street townhouse owned by President Taft, and that the place "quickly became the meeting place for New York's literary and banking elite." What bankers and writers were doing hanging about that part of midtown—or hanging out with each other—I have no idea.

The new location, on W. 47th near Time Square, is the meeting place of tourists and sports fans. Or maybe just tourists who are also sports fans. Anyway, no bankers. To my left at the bar was a Englishman who groaned or grunted with every triumph and failure of Manchester United. To my right were two strapping young German girls, sipping slowly through their glasses of Stella Artois, the ubiquitous Budweiser of imported beer. "Vat is that duck beer?" one asked the bartender. She meant the Goose Island IPA. The tap handle did kind of look like a duck. The bartender gave her a sample. She ordered a Boddington's instead. There is a long menu of Martinis, not a single one made with gin or vermouth. Also a Pig 'n' Whistle Ale on tap. But the bartender didn't know who made it for the bar, so I opted a pint of duck beer.

The guests over at the Doubletree Guest Suites across the street seem to like the Pig 'n' Whistle. Who can blame them? In the costly world of Times Square, it ranks as a cheap date. It's clean and there are t-shirts if you feel the need to take away a souvenir. A mother and two heavily-made-up daughters were given a whole booth, even though they announced their intention to only drink coffee. Most everyone else came in to watch the soccer game. The bartender killed the sound on the television when the commercials came on, but forgot to put it back on when the match returned. Nobody seemed to notice; they kept watching the game. The Englishman ordered another foamy Boddington's, "the cream of Manchester." He handed the barkeep a fifty. She held it up to the light. "It's OK," he said. "I just made it."

—Robert Simonson

A Beer At...Rockaway Beach Inn

I went pretty far afield for this one, all the way to the end of the A line, and then a few stop on the S shuttle. All to get to a crummy dive that caught my eye one day when I passed it on a bus. But, then, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who think a trip miles out of their way just to go to a run of the mill bar is a kind of adventure; and those who think such a detour is a boring waste of time. You know which category I fall in.

It just occurred to me that the bar's initials spelled RBI. Which would be a great thing for a sports bar. But I don't think people come here to watch sports.

A Beer At...Rockaway Beach Inn

I had a grudge against the Rockaway Beach Inn going in. The seedy denizens of this sketchy dive chased my photographer away when she tried to get some shots off. And she doesn't scare easy. I was not as abused by the rummies. But then I'm six feet tall and male. And I entered through the side door, not the main entrance, which gives out onto one of the most forlorn intersections in outer-borough slumdom. 

The Rockaway Beach Inn—a rather grand title for this saloon—has a capacious interior. The black-and-white checked floor stretches on forever, past the long, hulking wooden bar, past a beaten-up dart board and a platform lined with a drink-resting ledge, and finally sloping down to a room pool table area. The giveaway that this address has long been a bar are the massive, twin, wooden doors to the ice box—one behind the bar, one around the corner near the bathroom.

The people who drink here tend to have matted hair, like they've just returned from the sea. Most don't look like they're in a hurry to go anywhere, but a few seem to have jobs. One had an impressive array of keys hanging from his belt. Another wore a sweatshirt from a local bait company. The most active barfly kept bouncing back from his stool to the jukebox, plugging in once, sunny hit from 1970 after another. Jackson Five, The Osmonds, The Partridge Family. The bartender knew all the words to "The Love You Save." "I Want You Back" got the bag lady in the pink sweatpants bouncing in her seat.

She was sitting in one of the ponderous round booths made of rough wooden slats that line the western wall. The middle one had a round table, on which was carved the life-size image of a baseball player I couldn't identify. Prying eyes from outside were held at bay by windows armed with both lace demi-curtains and rattan blinds.

The odd ducks at the bar were two young, short bicyclists, who were obviously on a tour of Brooklyn and had stopped in for a fortifying shot and a beer. (Later, I saw them at Rockaway Taco.) At one point, an old guy wandered in from the street with a shopping bag in one hand and a bicycle pump in the other. "Bicycle pump," he said. "Bicycle pump for sale! Anyone want a bicycle pump?" I looked up at the bikers. They paid no attention to the man. Not their pump, I guess.

—Robert Simonson

A Beer At...Whiskey Wind Tavern

For this Eater column, I went out of town—a first for "A Beer At." Actually, I didn't go out of town expressly to write about this bar; I was already out of town, and found a bar to write about. But I knew about the Whisky Wind anyway. I've love it at first sight by name alone.

A Beer At...Whiskey Wind Tavern

On this, the last big weekend of summer, "A Beer At" follows the vacationers to the east end of Long Island, to the North Fork, where the wonderfully namedWhiskey Wind Tavern has been comforting old Greenport salts for three quarters of a century.

Most of Greenport's Front Street shuts down when the air turns cold, but the Whiskey Wind keeps its beacon on, offering the locals pool, foosball, a jukebox and a line of draft that includes regional pride Blue Point beer. Decor-wise, the only thing inside as interesting as the unique neon sign that heralds the bar's presence to the passerby is the old wooden bar, the round-framed mirror in the middle of which evokes a ship's wheel.

Old photos indicate this is the same bar installed by Bill Worth in 1940, when he founded the joint as Bill Worth's Rendezvous. Worth was a bootlegger who ran a Prohibition-era roadhouse by the name of the Worthwhile Inn. The bar was was then Meyer's Bar & Grill for a while before James Kuhlman bought it in 1993.

There's a sign behind the bar that reads "It's tourist season—why can't we shoot 'em?" But on a recent night, the Whiskey Wind wasn't dealing with too many tourists. And this being the north, not the south, fork, there was little danger of any slumming celebs. The stools were filled by locals and regulars, all men, all chatty, all about twice the age of the sweet, short, blonde and very young barmaid. The tavern is open until 2 AM, which is plenty late for this hamlet. You can be sure that the Whiskey Wind's lights are the last to go out to go out in sleepy Greenport.

The odd name, by the way, supposedly harkens back to the days when fisherman would wait out hurricanes or nor'easters—called "whiskey winds"—in their local saloon. So, was Irene a whiskey wind, then?

—Robert Simonson

A Beer At...Teddy's

A reader at Eater said the Mae West story I include in this write-up is apocryphal. Could be. Certainly, old taverns dispense their share of self-aggrandizing lies. But I found the tale in two sources. True, one of them was Wikipedia, but the other was the well-respected "Historic Shops and Restaurants of New York." It's funny: another old New York bar I've covered in this series, Neir's in Queens, also claimed a Mae West connection.

A Beer at...Teddy's

Is Teddy's an anonymous, unknown bar? Not exactly. I remember, back in the days when Williamsburg was an actual artistic enclave—when scruffy young men wore wool caps because they were cold and poor, not because it was part of the hipster uniform—Teddy's was a key artist hangout. But today this wonderful old tavern is overshadowed by dozens of trendier new watering holes. 

Teddy's is the oldest bar in Williamsburg. It's been around since 1889. For its first 30 years, it was a franchise bar serving a local brew whose name can still be seen in the beautiful stained-glass window facing the street: Peter Doelger's Extra Beer. That the sign is still there is a bit of a miracle, since Doelger's hasn't been made since Prohibition. Doelger was a millionaire beer baron, and probably a bit of a capitalist bastard; an anarchist once left a bomb on his doorstep. He also disapproved of his daughter Mathilda marrying a boxer named John West, even though that union gave the world Mae West.

One would love to picture Mae lifting one or two here at some point. But Mathilda remarried in the 1890s—wedding the son of another local brewer (sounds like daddy's doing)—so it's hard to say. Tammany Hall pols almost made good use of the place back in the day when saloons did double duty as political centers. An Alderman actually lived upstairs once.

The food served here is a relatively new phenomenon—new, meaning the last couple decades—and the weekend brunch is popular. Live bands play here Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays as part of a series that goes by the rather square name of "Williamsburg Nights." Television sets are tuned to the night's game. I always considered televisions in a historic bar a desecration of sacred space. But such are the compromises that must be made to please a modern clientele, for which drinking and talking is not entertainment enough.

The patrons on a recent night seem strangely not of Williamsburg. Parents with children, older couples, a group of visiting Japanese tourists. Or maybe this is just theother Williamsburg, the one that doesn't get the press. And maybe in twenty years, when the current crop of tattoo-parlor habitues have moved on, and the hot bar of the moment is a distant memory, these unglamorous barflies will still be here. And so will Teddy's. 

—Robert Simonson

A Beer At...The Hairy Monk

One question: Why's it called The Hairy Monk, and not something more Boston-y?

A Beer at...The Hairy Monk

How Boston Bar can The Hairy Monk get? In the back room, they've got a picture of Babe Ruth—the House-That-Ruth-Built Ruth, New York Yankee Ruth, that Ruth—in a Red Sox uniform. That's how Boston Bar it can get.

It's mainly about the Sox here. Red Sox banners, jerseys, news clips, metal buckets (?), little stuffed animals called Wally after the left field wall in Fenway Park known as the Green Monster. This time of year, the televisions broadcast Red Sox games. A few knick-knacks pay homage to the Celtics, Bruins and Patriots (which have given patrons many reason to celebrate in the past decade) are squeezed in here and there. But it's the Red Sox logo that the Hairy Monk puts on its t-shirts.

Sports bars dedicated to non-home teams are a freakish watering-hole subset in New York. I understand being homesick. But carving a Boston sports bar out of the Yankees rock known as Manhattan seems to me a perversely masochistic enterprise. Why does the Hairy Monk put itself through the pain? Well, apparently one of the owners lived in Boston for ten years and never got over it.

It's a decent joint, even if you don't like Boston, or don't care about the pennant race at all. They've got 19 beers on tap (Sam Adams, of course), all served in 20-ounce pints. Happy hour lasts from 11 AM to 7 PM, making it pretty damn hard to miss. There's a set of tables in the back room, where you can order Irish breakfast "all day every day"—though I have no idea who would want to do that. I could have used a bartender less taciturn, but then he was doing double duty as barkeep and waiter.

I didn't get the feeling that everyone in the place gave a damn about Beantown. A few barflies were intent on the game. But most seemed like young office cogs unwinding after work, arguing about the best was to get trashed. Me? I read the Ted Williams obit pasted on the wall. 

—Robert Simonson

A Beer at...Finnegan's Wake

Every city in America has a bar called Finnegan's Wake (usually full of people who have never cracked the book). This is New York's:

A Beer at...Finnegan's Wake

I thought it must be Ladies' Night at Finnegan's Wake. And I do mean ladies, because every woman at the bar was of a certain age or older. They came in in twos and threes, unencumbered by men, and wrapped up in floral prints. They drank beer and sipped glasses of white wine that the bartender filled to the brim. One poured melting ice from a bar glass to cool down her Martini. None of them were unfamiliar with the place, a pub as Irish as they were.

A tiny, middle-aged Asian woman came in with a clutch of bootleg DVDs. I've seen these sort of hucksters in bars all my life. Usually they're chased out by the owner. But at Finnegan's Wake, the woman's reception was warm. The trio of ladies at the end of the bar looked through her stock. No sale. But the two film industry lushes nearby, who had been dropping names like James Gandolfini all night, were willing customers. "Hangover Part 2"? Yes. "The Dilemma"? Definitely. "The Adjustment Bureau"? OK. They bought about 12 movies. Then one went out for a smoke, jostling the lady with the ash-blonde bouffant hairdo next to him. He apologized by warmly shaking her hand and introducing himself. He was that kind of drunk, the sort that endeavors to remain civilized by constantly shaking hands with strangers. He did the same thing to the identical woman 20 minutes later. She asked for her check soon after.

Two-thirds of Finnegan's Wake is given over to dining. At 8 PM one recent weeknight, there wasn't a table to be had. The diners were obviously regulars, gray around the temples, thick around the waist. They sat in married couples of one or two. Occasionally a grown son or daughter was thrown in. And, as at the bar, plenty of ladies enjoying a drink and a talk and tossed green salad, or a dish of steamed vegetables that looked remarkably fresh. (Don't worry pubsters—you can get your bangers and mash and burger here, too.) The staff is constant. The owner, Anthony King, who opened the bar on the corner of First Avenue and 73rd Street in 1972, brags on his website that the kitchen workers have been with him a total of 130 years, and he has seen waitresses through college. He even praises his wonderful landlord. There's a first.

—Robert Simonson 

A Beer At...The Punch Bowl

For a liquor history buff, few excitements match the discovery of an old bar you never knew about. From the outside, The Bronx's The Punch Bowl looks like just another unlovely Irish pub. Inside, however, it's a feast for the eyes and the imagination. There's been a bar at this location since 1901—that is, since there's been a building at this location. And ample evidence of the joint's layered history lies inside. I recommend you take the 1 line all the way to the end, save one stop, and find out for yourself.

Here's the column:

A Beer At...Twins Pub

From my Eater column:

A Beer At...Twins Pub

Perhaps because it shivers in the western shadow of hulking Madison Square Garden, the block of Ninth Avenue between 33rd and 34th Streets has preserved something of the tang of the city's pre-Giuliani underbelly. The gritty stretch holds not one but two Chinese takeout joints, a money order office, an antiquated office supply shop, a place to repair shoes and a couple dueling Irish pubs. It's a living museum of midtown Manhattan that John McNulty might recognize.

One of these pubs is Twins Pub, which has a couple of immediate things going for it. One is its unique signage, in which "Twins" is spelled out in gigantic letters on both the ground floor and the second floor, the upper version in red neon and curved, stadium-style. It's a hell of a beacon. The other is the unusual name itself. Twins isactually run by twins, a couple of middle-aged men named Pat and Danny. They're the sons of the man that founded Twins some four decades ago.

The place has been renovated since then, I'm sure. It's slick, and spic and span these days, not a stain on the smooth wooden bar, framed pictures of famous sports moments or red-white-and-blue bunting. There's a roomy dining area in back, and further space upstairs. The music is U2, Springsteen, Bon Jovi and nothing unexpected. Not a thing is out of place or broken in, which gives the bar an unexciting, antiseptic feel. But perhaps this is why its patrons like it. (That, and the $3 Harps.) "See you tomorrow," said the bartender to an elderly couple, who had enjoyed their drinks in leisure. Perhaps they come every night.

Given its location, Twins attracts people in transit, on their way to and from Penn Station or a game. ("Stuck in Midtown waiting for the bus with time to kill?" reads a Yelp entry.) Two women wheeled their luggage out of the pub after finished their beers, and then hailed a taxi. A couple stopped in for a nightcap after returning from a Yankees game that had been rained out. This was their point of parting. The man, who wore a bulging black leather jacket that read "World Champions," lived in New Jersey. His girlfriend lived in the Bronx. Very generous of her, I thought, to leave her home borough for 34th Street, just to say goodbye to her man at Twins. They both complained that the Yankees had given in too early to "this kind of rain." The twin on duty agreed. The Yankees, by the way, had played the Twins.

—Robert Simonson

A Beer At...Pete's Waterfront Ale House

Some of my earliest fine liquor memories were at Pete's Waterfront Ale House in Brooklyn. I had my first memorable experience of what single malt Scotch could be (Lagavulin, specifically) there sometime in the early '90s. I've always returned there when the pretensions and airs of some of the newer Brooklyn bars become too much. The draft selection is always excellent.

A Beer at...Pete's Waterfront Ale House 

A middle-aged couple in black, who looked like they had just gotten off a motorcycle, walked into Pete's Waterfront Ale House on Atlantic Avenue. "Hello! Haven't seen you in a while," said the bartender, a 40-something man with a ponytail, glasses, excess bonhomie and a lot of bad jokes. "That's how we like it?" said the guest, scanning the chalkboard's rundown of featured drafts. "You've got a lot IPAs right now." "Yes, that's us," said the barkeep. "One week we've got a ton of IPAs, the next week we don't have any. But really, there are a lot of IPA drinkers here." 

Pete's Waterfront has been caring for Brooklyn beer drinkers for 22 years, making it one of the oldest of the borough's discriminating watering holes. Today, you can go to nearby Brazen Head, Strong Place or Bar Great Harry for quality brew, and Char. No. 4 and Jake Walk for top shelf whiskey. But throughout the 1990s, Pete's was pretty much the whole story. An oasis. It opened in a snug space on the south side of Atlantic, where a bar called Last Exit now is, and moved to roomier digs across the street about 15 years ago, keeping a relatively low profile all along the way. It's comfortable and unpretentious and attracts a minimum of empty-headed yahoos. 

Being a cocktail person, I tend to think of Pete's differently than do the regular denizens, who are mainly beer people, and come for the food (a good burger, and chili) as much as the drink, not to mention the ever-flowing popcorn machine. To me, it's a bit of a historical site. For it was here that Audrey Saunders, cocktail luminary and owner of The Pegu Club in Manhattan, had her first bartending job. The bartender, who began his relationship with Pete's as a drinker, has memories going back that far. "I remember Audrey," he said. "Haven't seen her in a long time. She's done well for herself, I hear." You might say that. 

Pete's is owned by Sam Barbieri (who Pete is/was, I dont know), who's a bit of a culinary tinkerer, and proud of his inventions. Over Christmas, Sam's "serious" egg nog was advertised on the bar wall. Right now, you can buy Sam's Hot Sauce and, more intriguingly, Sam's Honeybell Liqueur. This is made from a kind of hybrid, seedless orange which is available only this time of year. "It's here until its gone," said the bartender. "It's basically grain alcohol and sugar, flavored with the zest of the oranges. You've got to be careful with it." Indeed. It's 70% alcohol, looks like orange juice and goes down pretty smooth. Drinking the hot sauce might be a safer proposition. 

—Robert Simonson

A Beer At...O'Hanlon's Bar

Actually, there's yet another O'Hanlon's out in Forest Hills, Queens, I've learned. There are probably others as well. I'm not going to go to all of them. From Eater:

A Beer At...O'Hanlon's 

I was a paragraph or two into writing up this 14th Street pub when I realized this is actually the second time I'm portrayed a bar called O'Hanlon's in this column. The first such subject was the 72-year-old dive by that name in Astoria. Lovely place, that. This tavern, in Manhattan, is not nearly so old. But it was founded in 1974, which is something.

The corner of E. 14th and First Avenue must have been a pretty rough crossroads back then. O'Hanlon's bartender would have been equal to the scene. Small, wiry, and with the face of a longshoreman who just got off his shift, he was no ray of sunshine. "Is it still happy hour?" I asked. I had seen the sandwich board outside that said all domestic drafts were $3 during happy hour. He shrugged. Assuming that was a sort of "yes," I ordered a Brooklyn Lager. "Five dollars," he growled. "That's why I asked if it was still happy hour," I complained. "Brooklyn Lager is always five dollars," he answered. I was going to say something about how he should change his misleading "all domestic drafts" sucker sign, but I order a Bud instead.

O'Hanlon's used to have an old hand-carved sign outside. That's been replaced by one of those garish, faux-Irish frontages that are always painted some garish color. This one's red. This interior is appealing: low tin ceilings, wooden floors and iron pillars that sit a few steps below street level, giving the place the feel of a cozy den. The space is long and deep (it was a restaurant for decades before it became a bar). There's a pool room and then, further back, a dart room. Sit at a table across from the bar and the traffic between the front door and the back never quite ceases.

The clientele is varied, aside from the unifying fact that none of them put on airs. There are old men sitting at the bar; a crowd of just-off-work, loosened-tie office mates around the pool table hashing over the work day's events; husbands getting beers for their waiting wives. This is a sports bar in several ways. Green Bay Packers fans congregate here on Sundays during the football season. Dart tournaments are held in the back. And some take their pool seriously. While I was there, a stout woman came in and greeted a friend. She didn't attract my interest much until she opened a black case and started screwing together her silver custom pool cue.

The relaxed atmosphere was broken slightly by the clatter of a disabled young man and his service dog, a tall white poodle mix, noisily trying to maneuver his walker down the entryway. No one got up to help him, but no one looked surprised to see him either. I opened the door for the man. "Thank you," he said and made a labored beeline for the back room. A while later, I drew back the red curtain that concealed the room. Darts were off. It was open mike stand-up night. The young man with the walker was doing a bit on green beer. His dog sat in the audience.

—Robert Simonson

A Beer At...BillyMark's West

May I just say how much I dislike the fist bump as a form of greeting? My latest Eater column:

A Beer At....BillyMark's West

The sign on BillyMark's West reads "Since 1956." I've been to a lot of dives in my time, but few that were precious enough to proclaim—or even care about—their birthday. I steeled myself to encounter a kind of faux dive inside, more museum than bar. But, no. BillyMark's is a dive dive. As divey a dive as I've ever been in, with a strictly bottom-shelf array of liquors and beers (no taps) and a class Z clientele to guzzle them down.

A Beer At...The Gibson

Someone told me that, at a certain point in the evening, to encourage the clientele to get the hell out, the owner of this place turns the heat off. No idea if that is true, but I'd like to think it is.

A Beer at...The Gibson 

The Gibson's presence is announced by a brass plaque to the left of the door, like it was the Yale Club or something. That's OK. I would picture a bar that names itself after the Martini's quirky cousin to be a kind of class act, all 1930s elegance and chrome. But the interior confounds that expectation. It's wide, deep and woody, and vaguely blue-collar. There a fireplace with a fake fire in it, a dart board, a foosball table, video poker and a plasma TV tuned to hockey coverage. 

It's a place that screams: beer drinker. And, indeed, everyone is drinking one of the eight drafts, which include locals (Kelso) and nationals. Fine. Except the bar menu is filled with interesting things that nobody is drinking. There's a cocktail list that is not for the uninformed. A Sazerac can be ordered, a Brooklyn, a Scofflaw and, of course, a Gibson, complete with pearl onion and Plymouth Gin. Thirty Bourbons ranges from $5 a pour to $35. There's a good list of ryes and Irish whiskeys, and even five different Tennessee Whiskeys, for Christ's sake! (There are only two makers Tennessee Whiskey in the U.S.) 

All that liquid wealth, but one senses that few take advantage of the bounty. The coming festivities surrounding the Super Bowl are made much of through paper flyers posted here and there. There will be cheap beers and cheap chili, complete with Fritos. Advocates on Yelp cheer about the lack of Wburg hipsters in this joint. They're right. Despite the exposed brick and neat backyard patio and haute liquor list, this is a regular bar. There's no attitude. No pose. When I asked if there was anything to eat, I was handed a folder stuffed with Chinese and Mexican take-out menus. It's as if the owners planned a hipster bar, but no hipsters showed up. 

—Robert Simonson 

A Beer At...Desmond's Tavern

I'll go to any bar with a connection to Veronica Lake.

A Beer At...Desmond's Tavern

Veronica Lake was a film actress famous for her smoky voice, sultry look and blonde peek-a-boo bang that set off a national fashion craze. She had a brief Hollywood heyday in the 1940s ("Sullivan's Travels," "This Gun for Hire").

Popular lore at Desmond's Tavern—an Irish bar on Park Avenue South near 30th, that has been in business, under one name or another, since 1936—is that Lake worked as a barmaid here. It was called the Blarney Stone during Lake's period of employment. This, according to a nice old bartender with the comb-over and the roll of flesh around the beltline that hinted his thin frame was once a hefty one. Twenty years ago, he said, the joint switched to the name Desmond's, which was the corporate name of the Blarney Stone chain of bars. (Desmond's is no longer affiliated with any of the other Blarney Stones in town.)

On a recent evening, the bartender was probably the only one old enough in the bar to remember who Lake was. A solitary businessman in a fine topcoat silently nursed his beer as he watched a televised basketball game. Two men in dreadlocks loudly beat out, on the bar and the floor, Etta James' "At Last" with their palms and feet. A thin young man dressed like a member of The Jam, circa 1979, chatted with the friend. A group of young male and female cronies laughed and brayed about dating, hiding their winter bulk under shapeless sweaters.

Into this scene, a chic young woman with a Gucci purse breezed through the old breakfront, looking for someone. She ever so slightly blanched. Yes, miss: this is the bar. Ain't no secret panel in the back leading to a swank retro-speakeasy. And that empty Marlboro vending case behind the bar isn't there for irony's sake. It's just an empty Marlboro vending case. She put on a brave face, grabbed a stool and ordered a Bud Light.

A wooden arch just past the bar led to a large dining area, which was deserted except for a couple Indian gentleman having a soft conversation about something serious. Nobody was taking advantage of the food specials: $5 burgers Monday, Wednesday and Friday; $5 sandwiches Tuesday and Thursday; Buffalo wings specials 3 to 6 PM. (There's also free Wi-Fi back here, oddly enough.)

This is the only area that hint's at Desmond's secret history. In the corner, lost among the countless framed photos of past Yankees and Mets baseball teams, and pictures of Olde Ireland, is a studio shot of Veronica Lake. They say she worked here in the 1940s, but that dog don't hunt. She was in Hollywood by 1939 and remained a hot commodity for a decade. No way she moonlighted as a Manhattan waitress during that time. She did, however, turn up slinging drinks in a New York bar in the early 60s, when her film career was long washed up. She had a drinking problem throughout. Bar work: probably not the best gig for her. 

—Robert Simonson

A Beer At...Plug Uglies

I like any bar owner who has read Herbert Ashbury.

A Beer at...Plug Uglies

A triumphant shot rises up as I enter Plug Uglies, whose door is one of many on Third Avenue in the 20s that leads into an Irish bar. The Knicks score a critical basket? No. Someone has shown himself a silver-fingered master of the shuffleboard table that dominates the bar's back room. Perhaps due to its novelty, the game easily bests the nearby pool table in attracting barfly attention. Or maybe it's because you can hold a beer in one hand as you send a puck gliding across the board with the other. Can't do that in pool. Either way, the chalk board listing players "on deck" always has a few names on it.

Plug Uglies is 14 years old and is named after a motley and dangerous gang that roamed lower Manhattan 160 years ago. (Recent evidence, however, indicates the Plug Uglies actually terrorized Baltimore.) Those cutthroats and blackguards would hardly be welcome today, as Plug Uglies is very much a cop bar, based on the many police department arm patches affixed to the wall. (Not just New York, but Atlanta, Chicago, South Park, Sun Valley and elsewhere.) There are also street signs honoring Police Officer Anthony Sanchez, who was shot and killed in 1997 by a failed stockbroker attempting to rob his own father; and Sgt. Finbar Devine, who died in 1995 after leading NYPD's Emerald Society Pipes through 35 years of St. Patrick's Days parades. The soundtrack is on the heavy metal side, and the beer list is more than decent, a 50-strong mix of craft beers and the predictable pilsners.

The cute, blonde bartender in the scoop-necked black blouse is petite, but perceptively tough. She knows her job; doesn't touch my ten bucks on the bar until I'm ready to go. "Hey, where have you been lately?" she says to various Joes who saunter in, making them feel special. She shares a shot with a group she seems to know and like at the end of the bar. She doesn't with a more rowdy bunch at the other end, even though they take the time to shut their collectively yaps and stare with appreciation as she angles a bottle of Dewar's into a glass. "Your village called," a sign behind her reads. "Their idiot is missing."

—Robert Simonson

A Beer At...Nice Guy Eddie's

I guess I should say for the record here that I find "Reservoir Dogs" one of the most self-congratulatory, joylessly violent, static and dislikable films of all time, and do not understand those to fall to their knees in worship of it. But then, I don't understand why pizzerias put pictures of Al Pacino in "Scarface" and Marlon Brando in "The Godfather" on their walls either. This antipathy for the early work of Tarantino's early work (I do like "Pulp Fiction") has kept me out of Nice Guy Eddie's for years. But I went in last week. Here's what I found:

A Beer At...Nice Guy Eddie's

The two things Nice Guy Eddie's has got going for it are its primo location—at the corner of Avenue A and E. 1st Street, East Village and LES night trollers can't help but pass it by—and its name. Nice Guy Eddie was the name of one of Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," and you'll find posters and photos of the movie back near the bar's bathroom, as well as the soundtrack on the jukebox. It's a great name for a bar, even if it has taken on a slightly morbid hue—at least for me—since the 2006 death of Christopher Penn, the actor who played Nice Guy Eddie. He was 40.

A Beer At...Playwright Celtic Pub

This place grew on me. It has the right attitude, toward its patrons, toward itself, toward its neighborhood. It makes you feel welcome, and helps you forget midtown and the tourists outside.

A Beer At...Playwright Celtic Pub

Hal, of General Flooring (according to his shirt), is shit-faced. Those whopping pint glasses in front of him are filled with not just with Coke, but also Jack Daniel's. And by the looks of it, he's had six. Yet he reaches for Jimmy's bottle and tops off his glass with it. "Whaddaya doin'?" protests Jimmy. "Giving it a little bite," says Hal with a lopsided smile. Jimmy's drinking a non-alcoholic Buckler's, of course, but whatever. At this point, who cares?