Friday, March 5th, 2010—Bar 54

Day 54 (Where are you?)—Thursday, March 4th
Winnie’s

Okay, my parents are coming it to town this afternoon and I can’t drag them on this bar crawl, so for the next four days I’ll be going to bars in the afternoon. Today we’re going to try and make up for last night’s bad time and bad mood. I’m feeling much better and found a bar called Winnie’s in Chinatown. Supposedly it’s a legendary dive/karaoke bar and it looks kind of interesting. Normally I avoid the karaoke, but I have a feeling in the daytime it’ll be toned down.It’s a New York Magazine critics pick, so let’s see if it lives up to their review.

Here it is, Winnie's bar, deep in the heart of Chinatown.

Eng serves up the first beer of the day.

And here I am with the aforementioned beer. Cheers!

Pictures from days gone by hang above the bar.

I'm the only one in here, but it is daytime after all. The crowds build as night comes.

Here's Q the bartender, armed with a bottle of Snapple. Q's top three karaoke songs you should not put on when she is working are:

1. Sister Christian.

2. Bohemian Rhapsody.

3. Total Eclipse of the Heart.

The bar was originally called Happy Bar and here's the sign which hangs on the wall.

Red banquettes line the wall opposite the bar.

Here's Eng and Walter, a Winnie's regular.

Walter poses with Q.

Walter was kind enough to buy me a drink and here I am downing it. Huzzah!

I got to eat off the empoyees menu. A deep fried pork chop Eng cooked up for me. It was spicy and delicious!

Here's the bar's cat, guarding the karaoke stage. Her name is Mao Mao. Good kitty!

Some of the specialty drinks available at Winnie's. And don't forget to tip your bartender!

Winnie's has a festive, clubhouse atmosphere.

Here I am with another regualar, Jimmy.

Tony is Jimmy's son. He's a dancer and an artist. Check out his website here: Tony's Website.

And here's the whole gang! Thanks to Q, Eng and everybody at Winnie's for a delightful daytime adventure!

Review

Okay, instead of a review, I’m going to just write up what a good time I had at Winnie’s and what a refreshing change it was from the pretentious atmosphere of last night. I have to admit, I was kind of dreading to going to a bar in the daylight. I mean I’m a guy who’s worked night’s since 1985 and I rarely lurk about when the sun is shining. So I thought day one of the daytime bar crawl might be a bit of a drag. Luckily I started it at Winnie’s bar in Chinatown.

Okay, so it’s about 1:30 in the afternoon and usually I’d have posted the day’s bar crawl review and be back in bed, but today I had to be at a bar in the afternoon. I took a cab to Winnie’s, and walked in the door and no one appeared to be there. I shouted out, “Hello?” and that’s when an Asian man came running out and asked me what I wanted. I ordered a Budweiser, asked to take his picture and he was more than hospitable, he was one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met and told me his name was Eng as I shook his hand. And then the door opened up and he said, “Here’s who you should take a picture of!” And he was right. It was Q the bartender who was super-cute, funny and had baskets of fun bartender tales to tell. She really made me feel like we were having a little party in this cozy, fun and clubhouse-like dive bar. And Then Eng brought out deep-fried pork chops that were delicious, I got to eat off the employees menu for free. And then Walter came in and then Jimmy and then Tony and goddamn it all I had a freaking blast, all before five in the afternoon!

So, the bottom line is this, I don’t believe in bottom lines so there isn’t going to be one here. But if you want to have fun with genuine characters in a bar that’s loaded with character make your next stop Winnie’s. It’s the most fun I’ve had on the bar crawl so far! Cheers and beers to the gang at Winnie’s for making me feel so welcome, it was a true blast!

Winnie’s
104 Bayard St. (between Baxter and Mullberry St.)
212-732-2384

Thursday, March 4th, 2010—Bar 53

Day 53—Wednesday, March 3rd
Coffee Shop Bar

Okay, I have to admit to being completely in a bad mood and grumped to the fucking gills right now. I’m still at work and it’s getting late. Nothing has gone right tonight at work and I’m putting in over a twelve hour shift. I’m afraid the bar I originally chose may be closed by the time I get there. It’s always dicey after 1:00 in the morning, because even if you call, if it empties out all the sudden, they usually shut the joint down on weeknights. I don’t want to waste the time or the cab fare, plus I’m tired and I”m really not in the mood to do this.

There’s a bar right down the street from where I live that’s always open til 4am. That’s the good news. The bad news? It’s the Coffee Shop Bar. I haven’t been in this place in quite some time, in fact I reviewed it for my “99 Beers Off The Wall”  book years ago  and I didn’t give it a very good review. Okay, I gave it a horrible review. The people that come in here are pretentious and act like they’re all that and they’re really just a bunch of fucking losers, drowning their sorrows because they’re not on some vapid-ass reality show. Again, I haven’t been inside this joint in a long time, but I walk by it almost everyday and I don’t think much has changed. Most of the people I see going in make me want to puke right in my left boot. But due to the time of the night, I don’t have an alternative, so let’s go. Hopefully it won’t be that bad.

Here we are, the Coffee Shop Bar. One of the things I hate about this place is the name itself. It doesn’t make sense, sure they sell coffee in here, but it’s a fucking bar, not a coffee shop and it’s not even set up to look like a coffee shop. It would be like calling a coffee shop, The Bar Coffee Shop and then the shop has fuck-all to do with bars. I’m pissed off already and I haven’t even set foot in this fucking joint. I mentioned I’m in a really bad fucking mood, right?

Oh; boy, already I’m greeted with a jerk-off vibe in this place, bad techno music is playing and I wish I wan’t in here. And what’s going on with her? Is she trying to get everyone to look up? There’s two bartenders on duty one a good looking brunette woman and a bald pretty boy. Just my luck I get the bald pretty boy. I have to confess, he was nice enough, but I still didn’t feel like going through my 365 spiel with him. I’ll start with some of the people in the bar after this beer.

(Five minutes later.) Alright fuck this, I’m outta here. I know the rule is I’m supposed to have three drinks, but I’m bending the rules because I’m so fucking pissed off right now, I’m afraid I’m going to go off on someone and wind up in jail. I was here for a half an hour and that’s the equivalent of spending an eternity in a hot little saloon I like to call hell. Here’s what really tripped me from being in a bad mood to being in a mood so god-awful horrific that I wanted to rip the liver out of every prententious prick in this shithole and serve it up with some fava beans and a nice chianti. What happened was I was going to try and take some pictures of some people and make something usable out of this visit. I saw a woman standing near the yellow phone booths outside of the bathrooms and approached her. She was a brunette with a 70’s style Jane Fonda shag hairdo with too much makeup and it was obvious she can’t hold her booze. She looked pretty fucked up. I went up, took out my card and said my usual spiel I say when I ask someone to take their picture. I gave the her a card and said, “Hi, I’m going to 365 bars in 365 days and I’m documenting it with pictures from the bar and people inside it, could I take a picture of you?”

And with this, she puts her hand up in the air and drunkenly says, “No pictures!” Like she’s the female version of Sean Penn. So I laughed and said, “Hey, settle down, it’s not like I’m the paparazzi.”

And she drunkenly replies, “You could’ve fooled me!”

This fucking drunken hosebag thinks that a member of the paparazzi would be tailing her sorry inebriated ass? How fucking delusional can you get? “No pictures!” What the fuck? She should be thanking heaven and all it possesses that I even asked her, it’s the closest to any kind of microscopic fame this sorrowful excuse for a human shit-sack will ever come. I mean take a look in the mirror, sister, it’s way after midnight, you’re drunkenly teeter-tottering near the fucking bathroom and you have the fucking nerve to say, “No pictures!” What a fucking cunt! And outside of joking around, I don’t throw that word out describing a female very often, because 99.9 % of women do not deserve to have that word flung at them. But this fucking delusional airhead definitely does. “No pictures!” Fuck you! Remember the Bob Dylan record, “Blonde on Blonde?” This broad is “Cunt on Cunt.” Fuck it, I’m getting the fuck out of here, I’ll drink my beers at home. I really cannot fucking take it anymore. Fuck her, fuck this place, fuck, fuck fuck. My head’s about to explode!

Aaaahh...back home with my good friend Mr. Bud Weiser. Serenity now! Goodnight everybody!

Review

Here’s the original review of this shithole I wrote for my book, “99 Beers Off The Wall” back in 2002:
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There’s a massive, sprawling curly-que wooden bar in the middle of the Coffee Shop Bar with booths off to one side, tables and banquettes for eating lunch and dinner off to the other and another, smaller bar in the back. So the good news is, there’s usually a good shot at snaring a seat somewhere. But as we all have realized by now in our sorry-ass lives, when there’s good news, very often bad news is right around the corner waiting in the wings, ready to pounce. Such is the case here. This joint is loaded with attitude, mainly from the pretentious crowd that populate this place—which by the way resembles a coffee shop about as much as a giant brand new, sparkly, corporate Barnes and Noble book store resembles the beaten up, yet charming corner newsstand. The majority of the crowd here is young women who are wannabe models and actresses and sleazy guys in phony Wall Street and agent type mode. Basically the scene in here is this: The wannabe model is fed a line from the phony agent guy promising a photo shoot here, a screen test there. They go home, have sex and in the morning when the designer drugs have worn off and they’ve sobered up, they realize that they’re both losers. Good looking losers, but losers all the same. The wannabe model becomes a high priced hooker and the phony agent guy gets lucky the next night by telling some crack whore he can get her an audition for the next edition of Survivor. Oh, I saw Susan Sarandon having lunch in here once. She’s not here today.
-----------------------------
I stand by my original review.

No pictures? FUCK YOU!

Coffee Shop Bar
29 Union Square
212-243-7969

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010—Bar 52

Day 52—Tuesday, March 2nd
Fontana’s

First off, if you’re in the Chicago area, check out my friend Karla Zimmerman’s app. It’s a guide for cheap but tasty eats at local restaurants loaded with good food and lots of Windy City character. It’s just 99 cents from the i-Tunes app store and it has over 70 foodie-favorite restaurants write ups and directions and phone numbers. I’m going to Chicago this April and I’m going to use this...but first I really need to figure out what an app is. Anyway, check out Karla’s Chicago Foodie App here: Chicago Cheap Eats.

Okay, it’s been awhile since we’ve been to a bar with live music, so I went to my good friend Google and found a bar called Fontana’s that's on the Lower East Side near Chinatown. This place looks like a motherfucking paradise of a joint. There’s two bars on the first floor, one’s a full bar as you enter and then there’s a loungey type one in another room with a pool table. And then there’s another bar in the basement and that’s where the band’s play. I always like seeing band’s in the basement, it brings out the John Wayne Gacy in me. So put on your clown suit and let’s get cracking!

Andy works the door and he didn't even card me. Sob!

The front bar looks cool and there's a free bar stool.

Dan the barender cracked open an ice-cold can of Rolling Rock for me. In addition to serving up drinks, Dan's a talented painter and exhibits his work in and around NYC. Check out his paintings here: Dan Sabau Paintings.

Some of the many beer selections to be had hang on the turquoise painted walls.

What's so funny about Peace, Love and Beer? From left, Martin, Ihae, Tika and Eric relaxing and drinking at Fontana's.

Breast in show!

Ali is a bar back and he's in the back bar. It's all making sense now...or is it?

Zebra striped booths and tables in the back room.

The pool table in the spacious back room.

Mike and Zofia were whooping it up at the front bar.

Go ahead punk...make my day!

Lukas, Antje and Oliver were enjoying drinks in the back banquette.

Uh oh, looks like Elvis ate a bad cheeseburger. Want some Tums, big guy?

Here's Dan and Pete. Pete was working the door that led down to the band of the evening...

The Tryptics! They put on a great show.

Christy was the bartender on duty in the basement. Cheers!

The Tryptics on stage. (Again, if the video doesn't play, try a different browser. Here at home Firefox doesn't work but Safari does. It's the opposite at work. Technology gives me a headache!)

Proof that Fontana's doesn't over serve!

A colorful story from the taxi driver on my way home. Goodnight everybody!

Review

If bars were baseball games, Fontana’s would be a triple play. There’s three distinctly different bars in this spacious saloon, all under one roof.

The front room has a large tiki bar with oversized, comfortable red-leather banquettes and tables lining the wall. Kitschy paintings of Dirty Harry era Clint Eastwood and a green Elvis hang above the banquettes and behind the bar. The room in the rear is only open weekends and can be rented out for private parties. It  has a lounge-like feel with a large screen where campy videos are projected. There’s a dash of playroom thrown in because of the pool table there. In the basement live music is cranked out by mainly local bands. If you prefer canned music, the jukebox in the front room has a nice selection ranging from the B-52’s, to Johnny Cash, T. Rex, James Brown and The Police.

Happy hour starts early here at 2pm till 9 pm and beers go for between three to four bucks. And thee’s plenty to choose from, Fontana’s boasts twelve beers on draught and a good selection of bottled beers including Corona, Heinekin, Budweiser and cans of Rolling Rock. All three bars are fully stocked and the bartenders and patrons are a friendly and fun bunch. No attitude at Fontana’s, just lots of room and plenty of booze, music and fun. Like I said, a triple play!

Fontana’s
105 Eldridge St (between Broome and Grand St.)
212-334-6740