If I were someone who consumed alcohol, consumed it frequently, maybe too frequently, maybe hungover at this very moment– I would be extremely pleased with the diverse New York City bar scene. However, everyone knows that all bloggers absolutely do not drink because we are too busy with our wildly successful internet writing careers. Instead, I write the following post hypothetically, but for ease of writing, it might read as if I have actually experienced the joys of alcohol, which of course I haven’t, because I’m much too busy posting in this blog every three weeks to indulge in libations of any kind.
There’s a place for anyone, even a super important and busy blogger, in the New York drinking scene. Desperate office worker? Midtown. Desperate high-powered office worker? Financial District. Tourist? Times Square, or maybe swigging a 40 under the Statue of Liberty while crying into your upside down subway map. Enjoy Pabst Blue Ribbon? Time to bust out your Chinatown Ray-Ban knockoffs and catch the L to Williamsburg. Do you wear a blazer with dark-wash jeans and pointy leather shoes? That’s unfortunate, but I hope you find your way to the Village. Study better for med school exams when you’re buzzed? Morningside Heights works. And also, seriously, don’t ever be my doctor. That’s f*cked up.
As a poor, procrastination-loving grad student who hypothetically drinks on occasion, I’m happy to spend time commuting to a bar with great specials, if only to escape the wanker bars that are closest to my fakepartment. One of these places in particular, the bar at Amsterdam Restaurant and Tapas Lounge, has a decently-priced happy hour. The downside to this place is that happens to be run by militant yuppies who hate everyone and hate themselves. Even though I hypothetically frequent this place every Thursday night with a large group of people, Amsterdam conveniently forgets our consistent patronage and always finds some excuse to yell at us. Whether it’s because we were ordering from the bar instead of from the waitresses, or because we weren’t aware we couldn’t eat delicious Levain cookies near the bar because they were “outside food,” or that other time when someone hypothetically and violently threw a couch cube at the bartender when he informed her happy hour was over– they always find an excuse to chastise us. Whatever, I don’t hold grudges. I’ll be there next Thursday, if they hypothetically let me back in after I hypothetically pay $400 in damages that never happened.
Self-explanatory, I think.
I do keep my eye out for cheap bar deals in the city. I (may or may not) have been to other places with a cheapskate mentality, such as the appropriately-named Cheap Shots, a dive bar on 1st Ave between 9th Street and St. Marks Place. This place is a shit hole and proud of it. It is the size of a walk in closet, and there might have been poop on the ground and lining the walls. Even so, true to their name, they do have cheap shots. My problem with this place wasn’t so much the poop as the tiny medicine cups that were posing as legitimate shot containers. It was continually disappointing to have a medicine cup as a drinking vessel but the contents not taste like Children’s Grape Dimetapp, which is a delicious, delicious cold-fighting medicine that should be the real base liquid for purple drank. But I’ll continue to come to this place, if only so I can begin stories with, “I was in a bar with poop on the walls and my Red Headed Slut came in a medicine cup…”
One bar in particular that has caught my eye while simultaneously perplexing me in every way possible is 123 Burger Shot Beer, a joint in Hell’s Kitchen. I’ve never actually been (TAKERS?!?!) but according to their website, it’s dollar burgers, two dollar shots, and three dollar beers– no gimmicks. Seems like a hell of a gimmick to me, AND IT’S WORKING. But, as Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords so intelligently once sang, “What are ya’ ovaheads?” Seriously, how does this place make money? It is utterly baffling. How is it even possible? How is this not a business model for every bar in the history of the United States of America? I wonder if the manager of 123 Burger Shot Beer moonlights as President of Citigroup, or perhaps the head of the Federal Reserve. It’s too good to be true, and I’ll believe it when I drink it, but only after I drink a lot of it, and then immediately regret it, and then take an expensive cab all the way back to Morningside Heights, which I will also immediately regret. Hypothetically speaking. Because I will never do this, ever.
Brb, going out for a blog.
HOW TO BE A NEW YORKER. 