Best Five Barkeeps In NYC
5 photos
<em>Sunny Balzano with Lillie Haus, formerly of Lillie's Bar. (John Del Signore/Gothamist)</em><p></p>Red Hook native <strong>Sunny Balzano</strong>, 76 years young, still lives above what is arguably <a href="http://gothamist.com/2008/05/09/sponsored_post_7.php">the best neighborhood bar in Brooklyn</a>, but he doesn't come down to party in <a href="http://www.sunnysredhook.com/">the eponymous bar</a> that often these days, instead choosing to spend his evenings upstairs with his young daughter. Balzano also knows that if he appears downstairs, he'll likely linger there until closing time, smoking and drinking until dawn. But his spirit fills the big old ground floor bar, which is decorated with his art and filled with his favorite live music on Friday and Saturday nights. <p></p>Still, if you're there on a night when Sunny surfaces, the experience is definitely enhanced; to know this fascinating Brooklyn character is to love him, in part because Sunny is so full of love. Yeah, we just said that, and we're not even that drunk yet. So go soak up some Sunny's to see for yourselfâthe bar's open Wednesday nights, Friday nights, Saturday nights, and on certain Sunday afternoons when they hold a semi-regular reading series (also good for Sunny-spotting). This Sunday they'll have L.A. poet Chiwan Choi, among others. (You can subscribe to Sunny's weekly mailing list to keep up with who's playing when at [email protected].) For more on Sunny, check out this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/27/nyregion/sunny-s-wonderful-saloon.html">expansive NY Times profile</a> on the man, and <a href="http://www.break.com/usercontent/2007/5/22/i-am-what-i-am-298913">this intimate video portrait</a>.
<em>Mark Penza (Haik Kocharian/Gothamist)</em><p></p>Queens-born brothers Billy and <strong>Mark Penza</strong> took over this dilapidated 1950s-era bar on Ninth Avenue and 29th Street in the late '90s and called it Billy Mark's West as a nod to their former joint to the east near Shea stadium. It's quite possibly our favorite dive in NYC, in part because the gritty surroundings stand in stark contrast to the disarmingly convivial atmosphere found inside. After taking in the pool table, the dart board, the booths, the Broadway show posters, and the unfailingly uplifting funk-heavy juke box, what strikes you about the place is its diversity. Perhaps Billy puts it best <a href="http://billymarkswest.com/HISTORY.html">on the website</a> when he describes his ideal bar as a place where "fun bartenders will talk about anything from ancient history to modern music and a crowd that can run from artist to postal worker to political journalist within the span of three bar stools."<p></p>That's Billy Mark's. The drinks are reasonably priced, the music is grooving, and on any given night Mark or Billy is holding forth behind the bar with a wide ranging conversation that draws everyone in. We've featured Mark here because it was his shift when we stopped by to take the photo, but each brother has his own distinct charms. Mark, a 56-year-old self-proclaimed "theater nut," tells us being behind the bar keeps him vital: "I do theater ten hours a night, seven days a week. Stand-up improv!" Happily, there's no cover, and it's not considered heckling to talk back.
<em>Lucy Mickevicis (Haik Kocharian/Gothamist)</em><p></p>As "Enter Sandman" churns out of the jukebox at just the right level, <strong>Lucy Mickevicis </strong>leans over to pour you a buyback Jameson and knods her head to the beat, confessing, "I love Metallica." Just another comforting night at Lucy's, an East Village dive frequented by a mix of NYU kids and neighborhood eccentrics. The Polish proprietress has been running the place since 1981 (then it was called Blanche's); she's been in the East Village since the '50s and still calls the neighborhood home. The bar also feels like home. When Lucy's not behind the bar (her drop-dead gorgeous granddaughter fills in from time to time) she disappears into a back room that you imagine to be equipped with a reclining sofa, a wood stove, and knitting needles. <p></p>But she never stays away for long, and is always quick to fire up the jukebox to her favorite Pixies or Tom Petty songs when it runs out of gas. "I love talking with the young people," Mickevicis explains. "Some of them come in here for a few years, and then all of a sudden I see them on the TV." You may also recognize Lucy's from the TV; the interiorâwhich boasts two pool tablesâhas been featured in a number of movies. <a href="http://vimeo.com/5206854">Here's a great video</a> that shows Lucy in her element behind the bar and playing pinball. We defy you not to love her.
<em>Donald O'Finn inspects the Freddy's crest (John Del Signore/Gothamist)</em><p></p>When artist/barkeep <strong>Donald O'Finn</strong> started tending bar at Freddy's Bar and Backroom in Prospect Heights, the joint was mainly frequented by cops and firemen. But over the course of 14 years, O'Finn successfully alienated the more conservative members of his clientele, and the bar gradually became a more diverse watering hole, beloved by artists and locals who didn't need a shield to feel comfortable. The old Freddy's was a casualty of the <a href="http://gothamist.com/tags/atlanticyards">Atlantic Yards project</a>, and when the bar was finally seized through eminent domain, O'Finn took over the entity with fellow bartenders Matt Kuhn and Matt Kimmet, and decamped to south Park Slope, where the spirit of the place has been lovingly recreated.<p></p>O'Finn oversees much of the aesthetic choices, and though they brought the old carved-up booths,<a href="http://gothamist.com/2009/12/21/atlantic_yards_protesters_handcuff.php"> the famous chains</a> from <a href="http://gothamist.com/2009/12/28/freddys_bar_sharpens_guillotine_to.php">the Atlantic Yards protests</a>, and the original Prohibition-era bar ("It's more sturdy here than in the old place"), he stresses that <a href="http://freddysbar.com/">the new Freddy's</a> isn't a nostalgia trip. "The old Freddy's is fucking dead," O'Finn declares. "Get it out of your head. This was never about replacing the old place. If we can keep some of the spirit of the old place, great. But we have everything in storage still. The shark did not make it. He's still in the basement, so there's hope."<p></p>O'Finn, who curates a rotating series of artists in the side room/performance space, drew the bar's brilliant Heimlich maneuver poster, which depicts Bluto inexplicably saving Popeye from choking. He also created the impressive dragon that keeps watch over the bar, and made damn sure the original bathroom graffiti was preserved. Behind the bar, a video of a cat drinking milk plays on an endless loop. "Nobody out-drinks the cat," says O'Finn with a sly grin. You can find him behind the bar on Thursdays, Fridays, and during the day on Saturdays.
<strong>Dave Pollack</strong> is probably the dark horse of this roundup. Where, one might ask, is Tracy Westmoreland (good question), or <a href="http://gothamist.com/2010/05/06/painkiller.php">Painkiller</a>'s Richard Boccato, or Spring Lounge's David Sicherman? All esteemed barkeeps, but there's something that keeps us coming back to Dave Pollack and his thoughtful craft beer bar in Greenpoint, <a href="http://thediamondbrooklyn.com">The Diamond</a>. Unlike some of our other favorite barkeeps here, Pollack's charm has less to do with gregariousness than with his impeccable taste. In short, this is one pretty bar. An entire wall in the back is covered with a hypnotic, <a href="http://thediamondbrooklyn.com/pictorial-2/the-diamond-6/">multi-colored wall light</a> that evokes a gigantic light bright (Pollack once told us its origin story, but for some reason we don't remember!).<p></p> The bathrooms are lined with '70s-era ski resorts brochures and their hilarious ad copy, there are nice round table banquettes by the front window, a horseshoe-shaped bar, an immaculate shuffle board table, a 3D Michael Landon portrait, a stunning color photo of bathers at Coney Island, and a winning jukebox that ranges from Fugazi to Steely Dan. And we didn't even get to <a href="http://gothamist.com/2009/06/04/best_new_nyc_bars_and_restaurants_f.php?gallery0Pic=1#photo-7">the bi-level back yard</a> terrace, which boasts a gondola and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoits">quoits</a>. Papacitos, which makes some mean seitan tacos, delivers there. It's our happy place. And the guy who calls the shots happens to be a smiling, cheerful presence in a business rife with belligerent mercenaries.