Night 14: Mr. Dennehy's, Grey Dog, IFC, Karavas, Four Faced Liar, Down the Hatch
Cricket and Orbital call me up and tell me we should start exploring our new neighboorhood west of 6th St. I need to get some food, so I tell them to start exploring and when they find a bar I will come and meet them with my midle eastern plate to go. The first place they find is Mr. Dennehy's on Carmine near Houston. This place is styled to be an Irish bar, but the decor is not impressive nor is the crowd. Our drinks are actually terrible and I'm forced to finish off Cricket's $6 vodka tonic as a matter of principle. Our waitress, Carrie Pepper, is quite friendly, though I believe she mistakes my inquiries about the bar for chatting her up. In sum, the best thing about this bar is the view out the window.
Our next stop, farther up Carmine, is Grey Dog Coffee which is really a cafe, but they are serving beer and wine to a crowd at night, and I want to wash the taste of Mr. Dennehy's out of my mouth. I've been to Grey Dog Coffee before and I know it as a great place to have a bite and read something from the anti-imperlist bookstore across the street, but I've never approaced it as a bar before. As a bar it has a lot to offer, the space is intimate and interestingly decorated. My $8 wine was good, as were the chill tunes they were playing, and the service was lovely, friendly and interesting. Grey Dog Coffee is a great place to have a pleasant drink and conversation on a weekend night in the Village.
As we leave we are joined by our man Two swords Al as we continue on to the IFC bar. We had high hopes of the IFC bar as it is the bar attached to the theatre. It is a nice space, kind of futuristic, and they show a film on a screen - for us it was some 1940's classic - which should make for a chill place to hang out. But the crowd was not there because everyone in the bar was just waiting to see a movie. This ruined the atmosphere because, while we wanted to hang out, everyone else was just passing through.
At this point Two swords Al left us to have dinner with some friends and the three of us proceeded on to our next stop Karavas on West 4th. Karavas is a greek gyro place, not the obvious location for a bar. However, they have a bar on the side that draws a good sized crowd. As I walked in, someone mentioned the bar downstairs, so I went down to check it out. Whoa! Suddenly, I was transported to a disco lounge from the summer of 1977, complete with a dancing cage, shag carpet chairs and a left over summer of love paint job. There were few people in this space including a couple of large attractive ladies who looked like they were prostitutes, possibly male prostitutes. Our bartender was a cute film student from India who poured me a good vodka tonic for $8. This little head trip was a great discovery, but we had to move on and see what other gems were out there.
Next we went to the Four Faced Liar on West 4th and Two swords Al joined us again having finished his social obligations. The Liar is a nice traditional pub-feeling place. The kind of place with board games so that if you've been drinking with the same friends for days and have nothing interesting left to say, you still have something to do while you continue drinking. Our bartender poured a mean vodka tonic for $6. The Liar's unpretentioussness is only matched by its good drinks and good crowd.
At this point our drinking was starting to take a toll on us, my notes started to look like tick-tack-toe games and our ability to judge anything had become seriously impaired. Nonetheless, we decided to be brave and try one more bar. That choice was Down-the-Hatch, an establishment specializing in frat boys, drunk college girls, and drinking enough to puke. We got our drinks, which were cheap both in quality and in taste. The high point of this bar is a bench swing that we managed to snag and there pontificate on the inadequacies of the crowd and the cheesiness of the music. However, in our druken stupor, we fit in with the rest of the crowd just fine.
Our next stop, farther up Carmine, is Grey Dog Coffee which is really a cafe, but they are serving beer and wine to a crowd at night, and I want to wash the taste of Mr. Dennehy's out of my mouth. I've been to Grey Dog Coffee before and I know it as a great place to have a bite and read something from the anti-imperlist bookstore across the street, but I've never approaced it as a bar before. As a bar it has a lot to offer, the space is intimate and interestingly decorated. My $8 wine was good, as were the chill tunes they were playing, and the service was lovely, friendly and interesting. Grey Dog Coffee is a great place to have a pleasant drink and conversation on a weekend night in the Village.
As we leave we are joined by our man Two swords Al as we continue on to the IFC bar. We had high hopes of the IFC bar as it is the bar attached to the theatre. It is a nice space, kind of futuristic, and they show a film on a screen - for us it was some 1940's classic - which should make for a chill place to hang out. But the crowd was not there because everyone in the bar was just waiting to see a movie. This ruined the atmosphere because, while we wanted to hang out, everyone else was just passing through.
At this point Two swords Al left us to have dinner with some friends and the three of us proceeded on to our next stop Karavas on West 4th. Karavas is a greek gyro place, not the obvious location for a bar. However, they have a bar on the side that draws a good sized crowd. As I walked in, someone mentioned the bar downstairs, so I went down to check it out. Whoa! Suddenly, I was transported to a disco lounge from the summer of 1977, complete with a dancing cage, shag carpet chairs and a left over summer of love paint job. There were few people in this space including a couple of large attractive ladies who looked like they were prostitutes, possibly male prostitutes. Our bartender was a cute film student from India who poured me a good vodka tonic for $8. This little head trip was a great discovery, but we had to move on and see what other gems were out there.
Next we went to the Four Faced Liar on West 4th and Two swords Al joined us again having finished his social obligations. The Liar is a nice traditional pub-feeling place. The kind of place with board games so that if you've been drinking with the same friends for days and have nothing interesting left to say, you still have something to do while you continue drinking. Our bartender poured a mean vodka tonic for $6. The Liar's unpretentioussness is only matched by its good drinks and good crowd.
At this point our drinking was starting to take a toll on us, my notes started to look like tick-tack-toe games and our ability to judge anything had become seriously impaired. Nonetheless, we decided to be brave and try one more bar. That choice was Down-the-Hatch, an establishment specializing in frat boys, drunk college girls, and drinking enough to puke. We got our drinks, which were cheap both in quality and in taste. The high point of this bar is a bench swing that we managed to snag and there pontificate on the inadequacies of the crowd and the cheesiness of the music. However, in our druken stupor, we fit in with the rest of the crowd just fine.
posted by Orbital @ 11:57 AM
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