Back In The Saddle Again

I decided to hit a new area today and headed up to Bay Ridge. This area is south of downtown area and has more of a laid back ambience. The part that I visited seems to have escaped much of the gentrification that has hit elsewhere and the bars have more of a neighborhood feel to them. Now granted, this observation is based only on the four that I visited today.

541) Bogart’s



On the corner of 62nd Street and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn is Bogart’s. It has an old wooden bar with a black top and a brass rail. The bar chairs are black metal with black vinyl seats and a bit mismatched. Kind of a plain setup behind the bar with a few mirrors and mirror backed shelves holding the liquor. Above the mirrors is an interesting painted cityscape of New York with a full moon silhouetting a bat with outstretched wings. Somewhat incongruously there was also a frozen drink machine (that didn’t appear to be operable) with an inflated SpongeBob SquarePants sitting on top.

There is a kind of a beat-up white ceiling and a somewhat scruffed up wooden floor. The walls are red and festooned with Bud, Bud Light, and Yankees pennants. There is a big sign advertising both Coors Light and Bogart’s Fishing Trip that costs $60 dollars but includes free beer. You sail on the SS Captain Dave out of Sheepshead Bay. Sounds like it would be fun to me. There is a pale green back room but I never made it back there to check it out. Looked like some video poker games, for entertainment purposes only, might be back there.

On the wall behind the bar chairs is a mirror and a shelf holding baseball caps, a pool trophy, some baseballs and softballs, and other paraphernalia. There is a pool table and a dart board as well and a couple of comfortable looking upholstered wing chairs. There was a large screen television featuring Mike and Mad Dog. There was only one other customer in the place and the bartender was working on his pool game most of the time. Not that he wasn’t attentive when need be though.

I had a bottle of Sam Adam’s Boston Lager served in an ice cold mug. Really hit the spot because it was quite hot outside and no air-conditioning inside.

542) Furlongs



Just kitty-corner was this somewhat seedy place with many more people hanging out. It had a beat-up bar and shelves with bottles behind it. Lot’s of baseball caps hanging from the ceiling. There was also a football helmet and a gladiator mask hanging no the wall behind the bar and a lot of red and white bunting. Didn’t seem like the place that I should be spending a lot of time taking notes, so I didn’t. Also I should probably just wear jeans and a tee shirt instead of my usual Hawaiian shirts if I want to fit in. OTB was on the one television and the bartender was complaining about how it was raining so hard where the race was taking place that you couldn’t see the horses. The race was taking place in Sarasota, I think, so we chatted a bit about Florida and the weather there lately. My sister lives in Fort Meyers.

I got a glass of Budweiser for only seventy-five cents.

543) Killarney’s



Down the street a bit at 6911 5th Avenue is this interesting place. The exterior is a bit deceiving because it is so cute looking, what with the flowers and everything. The interior is a bit different because it sure isn’t cute. It is a neat old Irish pub though. That was good because I really wasn’t in the mood for a cute Irish pub. It had an old wooden bar with a grey tile foot rest. Somebody must have a lock on the bar chairs around here because this place had the same ones as the last two bars. There were kind of neat mirrors behind the bar with a vaguely art deco look, the operative word being “vaguely.” Behind the bar were glasses on a shelf above the coolers and cupboards.. Wooden shelves above the glasses hold the liquor. There was an amazingly large number of Fleishmann’s Vodka stored in one of the cupboards. Cutout shamrocks hung above the mirrors. There were also framed caricatures of sports figures, most of them from the pages of the Daily News. There were kind of cool looking metal shaded lights hanging above the bar.

The walls were mostly paneled with the rest of them painted a kind of dusty rose. On the wall behind the bar chairs there were several pictures of old New York and one large picture of snow covered beer barrels. Also an old Player’s Cut Tobacco and Cigarettes sign. The ceiling is kind of a dark beamed affair. Fairly wide ledges behind the bar chairs have stools in front of them to handle the overflow from the bar. A couple of owls, the kind you put out to scare away pigeons, sit on the ledge by the front window. There is a pool table in the back that was seeing a fair amount of action. It had nice green shaded lights above it.

There was some guy at the bar apologizing profusely for something that he must have done before I arrived. In fact he continued to apologize the entire time I was there except when he talked to me about old movies and the cost of cable television. Whatever he did couldn’t have been too bad because they kept serving him. He had three beers and shots of Jack Daniels while I was there.

The Fresh Picked Kiwi liquid soap in the men's room was a nice touch.

I had a draft Newcastle Brown Ale.

544) PC’s Bar And Grill



A bit further down the 5th Avenue, between 72nd and 73rd was this place that, in a way, was a bit opposite of Killarney’s. It looked a bit seedier from the outside than it did once you got inside. It was surprisingly light and airy looking. The fact that it also had the air-conditioning running which made it cool inside probably added to that feeling. Both the bar and the cabinets behind the bar were light wood, or at least lighter than the norm. The floor was also a nice light wood. The chair distributor must not have gotten here either because their bar chairs were light wood with green vinyl seats. The wall behind the bar was brick and had a couple of large mirrors with narrow, but ornate, gilded frames. The walls that weren’t brick were paneled about half-way up with kind of a light recreation-room look to it and then mist-green above. The ceiling is the same color.

There were six televisions. One of them had classic boxing and the other five had OTB. There was a group of elderly men and women at one end of the bar following the action and having a somewhat animated discussion about racing in general. There is a pool table in the back room that had grey tiles.

I had a bottle of Budweiser. Not something I usually drink but it seemed appropriate here.

Not a bad day with four bars hit and a whole new neighborhood to explore. I have now hit 544 bars for the year and have 456 left to go.