Sunday, May 30th, 2010—Bar 140

Day 140—Saturday, May 29th, 2010
Black Iron Burger Shop
It’s Saturday and that can only mean one thing: Cheeseburger Saturday Night! On most Saturday’s here I go to a bar and get a cheeseburger and chill out a little bit. Today while googling bars and cheeseburgers I found this place, The Black Iron Burger Shop. Now any place that puts the word “burger” in the actual title of their joint is a pretty bold move, so let’s go and see if their burger lives up to their name.

And tonight we have two special guest stars appearing in the bar crawl. Tim and Colleen Carey are in town from Peoria, Illinois celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary and tonight I’m thrilled to have them as special guest crawlers (they will probably be guest crawling the next couple of nights, stay tuned.) Tim’s family has a pizza business in Peoria and they produce some of the tastiest pies in the world. They are available in stores and a lot of bars in the area serve them up as well. You can also order them online. Check out Butch’s Pizza here and dig the pig: Butch’s Premium Pizza.

And before I begin the bar crawl, I’d like to send out a special bar crawl toast to my Baltimore Bar Crawling buddy, Gene Rubbico. Gene’s deployed in Afghansitan and I wish him lots of safety and a speedy return trip home. He, Smoopy and Terry will be back here on the bar crawl in October and I look forward to that. Be safe, Gene and good luck, my friend!

Tim and Colleen are staying at the New Yorker hotel. As usual, I'm early, so I'll mill about on the street for awhile.

If you're looking at this shot, Steve Jobs, the donation button is over there at the top right.

Okay, here we are at Tim and Colleen's room.

And here they are in their room, tonight's special guest stars, Tim and Colleen! Woo hoo!

And here I proudly accept the new, official bar crawling, Butch's Pizza pen! It smells like pepperoni and I love it! Thanks, Tim!

Okay, we're at Penn Station taking the train to the East Village.

And here's our train. All aboard.

And after a bit of a walk (okay, I got us a little lost, I'm directionally-challenged), here we are at the Black Iron Burger Shop. And not a moment too soon, I'm starvin' like Marvin over here.

The bar is crowded, but this nice couple moved down so we could sit at the bar and do the crawl proper-like.

Scott's the bartender and manager here and he was friendly and knowledgeable about the craft beers and burgers and was more than happy in assisting us in ordering from the menu.

And here we are, a trio of hooligans out on the town.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, could this be the greatest cheeseburger on the crawl?

I leave Tim and Colleen to crawl around the bar and meet some of the other patrons.

Peter, Milan and Jeremy were enjoying burgers in the corner of the bar.

Here's Becky flashing the 365 card. Becky's one of the cute waitresses who serves up the tasty delights in here.

Ketchup!

This quartet had already enjoyed their food and were having some beer for dessert. From left: Sonja, Lester, Chelsea and Michael.

And here's chef Favian preparing the food. Hey, I need to get back to the bar to see if my cheeseburger is there.

And here it is all of it's cheesy gloriousness. I had the Black and Blue burger with grilled onions. It looks delicious.

It's one of the best burgers I've had on the bar crawl!

And Tim and Colleen agree.

And here's the man who cooked up our tasty dinner, Favian pictured with Hillary who's the other cute waitress in the bar.

The cheeseburger was so good, we got a couple bags to go. Goodnight everybody!

Review
Black Iron Burger is a cozy and friendly burger bar. Even though the bar is just over a year old it has old school wrought iron and wooden ambience with a mirrored back wall that has the entire menu and craft beers for your perusal. The bar seats just over a half a dozen and there's comfortable wooden tables and stools lining the walls and small back room. The griddle is located right next to the bar, so you can see the burgers as they’re being prepared. The staff is friendly and the patrons are mainly locals from the East Village neighborhood.

There’s a full bar and the beer on tap is craft beer. If you’re not a craft beer aficionado, the bartender and staff are happy to help you with your choice. The name of the joint is Black Iron Burger Shop, so the emphasis is on the burger and they offer up eight varieties including: The Black & Blue Burger which has blue cheese and Cajun seasoning; The Iron Horse which is a double patty with horseradish cheddar & grilled onions and the Black Jack Burger which is built with Monterey jack cheese, chili and jalapenos. I had the Black and Blue Burger and it was one of the best Saturday Night Cheeseburgers I’ve inhaled on the bar crawl so far. I highly recommend it.

In addition to the cheeseburgers there’s specialty appetizers and sides including: Fried Pickled Tomatoes, Chicken Wings, Onion Rings and the milk shakes are rumored to be superb. I wouldn’t know, I knocked back come of the excellent craft beer during my visit. Check out Black Iron Burger Shop, a real contender in New York’s cheeseburger wars.

Black Iron Burger Shop
540 E. 5th St. (Near Avenue B)
212-677-6067

Saturday, May 29th, 2010—Bar 139

Day 139—Firday, May 28th, 2010
Amsterdam Billiards & Bar (Originally headed for “Mysterioso Bar”)
Some nights spin weirdly on this bar crawl. Usually I write this introduction before I go out to the bar, but today I’m writing it in the morning with Long John Baldry blasting on my boom box as I try to wake up after last night’s crawl. What happened was I went to a bar a friend told me that was a small little bar that wouldn’t be too crazy on a Friday night. I’m not going into specifics about the place and you’ll find out why as you read on.

I got to the joint and it was perfect. It was a small place and not too crazy on a Friday night, just what I was looking for. I got out of work a little early and was jazzed that I had a three day weekend to look forward to. All was well. The bartender was pretty and nice and seemed to get a kick out of the 365 bars idea. I met a guy at the bar who also seemed amused at this project and we were having a nice conversation. The owner came in and I told him what I was doing and he posed for a photo and we talked about the bar. It hasn’t been open very long and I thought he probably appreciated the fact that I was going to give him some free publicity.

But then after I had been there for about 45 minutes, he came up and put some money in front of me and said he was paying for the beer I was drinking. I told him he didn’t have to do that, I wasn’t doing this for free beer and then he said to me, “I really don’t want you taking pictures in here and doing this.” I was a little surprised because I had told him what I was going to do and he agreed, then he did a 360 turn around and about 45 minutes of my night was blown to shits and bits He was really nice about it, and the fact he bought me the beer was cool, but then I was a little bummed out that I had to find another place after wasting around 45 minutes in this joint. But shit happens. He told me that he thought I was just writing a little something and once he saw me taking pictures he said he didn’t want that happening in his place. Which I understand, I mean if you have a bar that’s just opened and someone comes in who has a website with a decent audience that’s into bars and he’s going to take pictures of your bar and publicize it for free, well you really don’t want that, you learn that in Marketing 101...IN BIZARRO WORLD!

Anyway, like I said the owner was really nice about it, so I don’t want to rag on about him or his place, it’s just that I spent 45 minutes in there only to find out that I had to find another spot on a Friday night, which isn’t one of my favorite nights to go out because bars are packed and lots of the people in them are fucked up out of their gourd. And I had just gotten out of work after a long week and just wanted to do my crawl and go home. So here we go on an improv bar crawl. Some nights you just have to roll with the punches and this was one of those nights. Let the crawling begin.

Okay, I was just more or less paid off to leave the last place, so it's time for a lonely walk down 9th street towards 2nd Avenue in search of tonight's bar. Cue the video.

Holy shitballs, this is why I hate Friday nights, too many people out!

This place looked nice, but it was jam-packed, maybe I'll come back here on a Monday night.

I found this place, it had a peaceful and tranquil name.

And check it out, there's no crowd at all. I went inside and found out it was closing in about fifteen minutes. Fuck!

I stumbled upon this place. They've got a bar and maybe it won't be too nuts as the main attraction is the pool hall. Let's check it out.

Okay, the bar is nice and laid back and there's not a huge crowd here. And the bartender is pretty. Okay, bar crawl, Friday Night, take two!

And the bartender is not only pretty, she's nice and told me she was fine with me doing the bar crawl thing in the pool hall. Her name is Sofia and a waitress who heard me telling her about the bar crawl volunteered to take a photo of the two of us. I like it here!

And here's Kristen, the waitress who took the photo. She took another one of the two of us. Okay, the crawl is back on track!

There's over 25 pool tables in this place.

Here's some more of them.

I liked this painting on the wall.

There's also darts for your amusement in the pool hall.

And two pinball machines for all you pinball wizards out there.

Okay, back to the bar where Kristen and Sofia are hard at work.

Patrick was enjoying a beer at the bar and it turns out he works two blocks from me. It's a small world after all!

Bar snacks!

Alison and Zak were enjoying a drink at the bar and were supportive of the 365 bar crawl idea.

And here we come full circle. I took this photo of Adam and Ali at the first mysterioso bar, but I'll never tell the location! Goodnight, everybody!

Review
Amsterdam Billiards is a high class pool hall in the Union Squate area of Manhattan. There’s over 25 tables in the spacious and elegant hall, with a lounge area, darts, pinball and a nice bar with friendly bartenders and wait staff. The pool hall offers lessons, there’s coed leagues to join and you can book the entire place for a private party. After 10 pm, up to four people can rent a table for 29 bucks for the entire night. The pool hall has an oak paneled ambience, oriental rugs and lots of flat screen TV’s lining the walls to check out the latest games in between shots.

Speaking of shots, the bar section of the pool hall is spacious and a fun spot unto itself. The bar is a curvy and zinc and the bartender’s are friendly and there’s potato chips and snacks to munch on. There’s a full bar with a large selection of bottled beer and happy hour happens daily from 4pm to 7pm with one buck off select beverages.

And they don’t mind free publicity. Hallelujah!

Amsterdam Billiards & Bar
110 E. 11th St. (@4th Ave.)
212-995-0333

Friday, May 28th, 2010—Bar 138

Day 138—Thursday, May 27th, 2010
Temple Bar
Ding, ding, ding! Yes the PayPal donation buzzer is once again ringing and it’s a generous donation from Shannon Kennedy, who yesterday sent in $2.70 to tip the bathroom attendant and it turned out there was indeed a bathroom attendant at the bar I went to (Hiro Ballroom.) Shannon writes stories in her blog called, Green Monkey Tales and yesterday she wrote a moving piece about her son Kerry. You can read it here: Over The Rainbow.  I left a comment and Shannon sent in a more than generous donation of 27 dollars with the stated purpose of: “Cheers to Kerry.” Thank you so much Shannon and your blog got me thinking about life and its twists and turns and it was a good set up for the bar crawl that happened on Thursday. I’ll explain in the next paragraph. But before that, "Cheers to Kerry, indeed!"

To me, life is an ever-changing intersection of people that you meet along the way where your journey leads you. Some of these people are just a nod and a smile and I’ll never see you again people and others that you meet have a profound effect on your life and they even change the directon of it. This week I heard from three people that changed my life in oh so many ways and I always wonder if they really know how they re-directed the course of my life. Here’s the story morning glories.

In 1993 I had been publishing, editing and writing a magazine called People of Peoria in my hometown of Peoria, Illinois. It was a magazine where pretty much anything went and the three templates I borrowed from to create it were the National Lampoon, Mad magazine and People magazine. Sometime that year I got a call from a woman named Julie Reynolds who had moved back to Peoria from California. She had seen my magazine and wanted write for it. So we had lunch and I was the type of editor that if you agreed to have lunch with me, you could write for my magazine. I don’t know why all editors don’t operate like this, but I guess it’s just the way of the world. So we had lunch and she told me she had written for the Pekin Daily Times a newspaper in a neighboring town and that they used freelancers. Julie said the editors there were cool and I should call them and maybe try and write for them.

Now while I was doing my own magazine, deep down I really did want the validation of being published by a newspaper or magazine. I wanted to see my name in a byline in a publication that I wasn’t paying to produce. So I took Julie’s advice and called the paper and talked with one of the editors, Kevin Kaufman. Kevin was a great guy and liked my magazine and my writing and agreed to let me write a story on three private investigators in Pekin, Illinois. I wrote the story, turned it in and then Kevin introduced me to the Editor of the paper, Kent Davy.

Kent’s a nice guy, who isn’t an overwhelming person, but when he says something, it usually is worth hearing. One of the things he said to me after seeing my wacked-out Peoria version of People magazine was, “Have you ever sent this to Dick Stolley in New York?”

I answered back, “Who’s Dick Stolley?”

Kent simply said, “Sit down.”

He then explained that Dick Stolley was the founding editor of People magazine and he was from Pekin, Illinois. And he started writing for the Pekin Daily Times when he was 16-years-old. Kent said he’d probably get a kick out of my magazine and my stories from the Pekin Daily Times and I should send them to him.

So I did.

I ended up meeting Dick Stolley and he turned out to be a great guy and a good friend through the years. In our first meeting he asked how my magazine was doing and I confessed that it was doing horribly because I couldn’t sell ads for it, even though the newsstand sales were good. He said to me, “Have you ever thought about moving to New York?”

And I hadn’t. But then I did. And soon I cashed in my pension fund from a job I had worked at for 13 years, moved to New York, Dick got me interviews at People, Entertainment Weekly and In Style and I learned that I wasn’t Time, Inc. employable, but I was in New York City. I started freelancing and snared bylines in some of the weekly papers and then two of the dailys, and some magazines. I got a night job, started another magazine which became a cult hit, but bled money like magazines can do, wrote a couple books, learned how to do websites and now I’m going to 365 bars in 365 days.

And it all started with Julie Reynolds suggesting I call the editors at the Pekin Daily Times. Life is full of weird twists and turns and if you're reading this, you're sharing one of the many twists my life has taken in the last few decades.

Well, tonight, the man who suggested I send Dick Stolley my magazine is my special guest star on the bar crawl. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my honor to introduce...
Kent Davy the man who gave me my first newspaper byline, seated in my apartment enjoying a can of Budweiser. Kent is now the editor of North County Times in California. Check the newspaper out online here: North County Times.

Kent and I enjoyed beers and a dinner at the Chat 'n' Chew restaurant which will be featured soon on this bar crawl.

We were going to The Temple Bar to meet some friends of Kent's and along the way we walked by my first place of employment, 611 Broadway. I worked for nights here for Sarabande Press owned by Joe Freedman. The building always brings back memories and I showed Kent where Sarabande used to be located.

I spent a lot of time in the hallway, smoking cigarettes in this building, here's a reenactment.

Okay, onto tonight's bar crawl destination, The Temple Bar.

It's old school New York wooden and red velvet ambiance inside here.

And we were greeted warmly by Jessica who quickly served up two bottles of imported beer.

Kent receives a text saying his friends are on the way.

And through the magic of the internet, here they are! From left, Kent, Eric, Varinda and Jinda. They're great people to hang out with and you need to check out Eric's coupon website here: 10 Local Coupons.

The Temple Bar is a nice place for cocktails and converstation. Here I'm telling Varinda, Jinda and Eric about the 17,009 hits of acid I took while in high school. That's right, I single-handedly put the "high" back in high school.

The side room has a lounge atmosphere with tables and comfortable velvet couches.

Kelley was enjoying a drink and waiting for her friend Alex who has written and is starring in this play: The Common Air. I plan on seeing this play and will feature it in an upcoming crawl episode.

Just some of the top shelf liquor available at the Temple Bar.

Christine was the other bartender on duty. She's a knowledgable mixologist and is studying to be a wine sommelier.

Popcorn!

Christene and Michael were on their way out, but graciously posed for a picture before they headed out. Michael's a DJ, check out his website here: Salsa-Berlin.

Varinda and Jinda, two beautiful and fun sisters who brightened up tonight's bar crawl.

Pedro was enjoying a martini at the end of the bar. Cheers!

Kent edits my notes and you can see how well I take direction. It was great to see Kent again and meet his wonderful friends! Goodnight everybody!

Review
The Temple Bar is an elegant, red velvet and dark wooden two-roomed bar that is somewhat quiet and the staff is friendly and the vibe inside is comfortable and relaxing. The bar in the front room zigs and zags in a wooden curly-cue fashion, the music is low-key and it’s a good place to sip cocktails and enjoy conversation with friends and patrons of the bar. There’s tables in the back room for larger groups and dining. The Temple Bar is a perfect first date bar with lighting guaranteed to show you at your best. Just watch out for that early morning light the next day though, it can be a killer.

The Temple Bar has top shelf liquor with eleven international vodka choices, twenty different bottles of gin and an extensive wine list. The bartenders are talented mixologists and can help guide you with a choice of a specialty drink or explain the wine list to you. The bottled beer choices include: Victory Storm King Stout, Sapporo, Grolsch and Chimay Grand Reserve. The Temple bar also has a generous selection of specialty drinks including: Black Crow Cocktail which is, vodka, kahlua and Vietnamese coffee; The Pisco Sour which is a mixture of pisco, lime juice and egg white and a Ginger Highball which is gold rum, lime, lavender and ginger.

If you want a little food to soak up some of the cocktails, the kitchen is open till midnight and some of the choices for snacks include: Temple Bar Guacamole, Steamed Chinese Dumplings, Potato Pancakes and Organic Deviled Eggs.

Happy Hour runs Monday through Friday, 5pm-7pm, featuring $8-$9 specialty cocktails and free bar snacks. The Temple Bar is a nice, elegant bar with a friendly, attitude-free staff that makes for a nice enjoyable night on the town.

Temple Bar
332 Lafayette St. (@Bleecker St.)
212-925-4242