Monday, August 17, 2009

The best bar in New York: Lucky Dog

Posted by Jonny Diamond on Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 2:16 PM

1711/1250532795-cute_meeka.jpg
My new favorite bar is called Lucky Dog and it's on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg (between South 2nd and South 1st — about 90 seconds from my apartment.) If I was independently wealthy this bar would allow me to finally make that jump from functional alcoholic to charmingly dysfunctional alcoholic (hi Mom!).

Anyway, there I was dragging my sorry ass through Saturday's deathly heat, beloved wife at my side, when we saw the following written in chalk just outside the bar: "Dogs welcome." As People of the Dog, we're always on the lookout for canine-friendly places (you know, "No dogs, No Irish..."), so my suggestion of "a quick beer" was met with enthusiastic approval (it also didn't hurt that we could hear a Mountain Goats song wafting out into the street).

As we sat down at the classic, unfussy wooden bar a Waylon Jennings song came on (two for two!). I went down to check out the 20 beers on tap and was happy to see nothing but small American and good German, all for $5 a pint. They also do pitchers, which is amazing, and buckets of PBR, along with absolute vats of Genny Cream Ale for little-to-no money, so if you just wanna get shitfucked on cheap cold beer, that's available to you. But for me, having the choice of 20 thoughtfully curated drafts without any of the pretension of the "Brooklyn beer bar" (I'm looking at you Spuyten Duyvil) is fantastic.

So we ordered (me, a Lagunitas Pilsner, she, a Kolsch) and a Fall song came on (seriously, the house playlist is brilliant, as is the jukebox), and we began to take a look around: Oh hey, what's that in the corner? A stand-up shuffleboard table! And look, at the back... A huge garden lit with gorgeous lanterns, where you can smoke if you want to... SERIOUSLY, THIS BAR IS PERFECT.

It's so perfect that we stayed for three hours longer than we'd intended to — but every time we tried to leave, either one of our favorite songs came on or the bartender got us a buyback round, so what are you supposed to do when that happens!? RIGHT!?

I LOVE YOU LUCKY DOG

P.S. They also have a cheese/meat plate, but we made do with Fritos and Utz.

Tags: , , ,

Comments (5) RSS

Showing 1-5 of 5

Add a comment

Allagash White AND Franziskaner, that is awesome. My goal will be to drink every single beer on that list in the shortest possible time.

Posted by gjk on August 18, 2009 at 10:29 AM | Report this comment

If I lived this close to the best bar in New York, I would probably not go telling the entire internet about it.

This is, arguably, quite altruistic of you.

Posted by Mark Asch on August 18, 2009 at 12:20 PM | Report this comment

thanks for this. as you may know, Iona no longer allows dogs or good music.

Posted by soundbitesnyc on August 18, 2009 at 2:45 PM | Report this comment

sadly, iona never allowed good music- the people are great, the music hard to take...

note to lucky dog owners: jukebox rules, not so much the music the thrasher-loving bartender plays...tough flipping back and forth between ryan adams/george jones and erm, that kinda stuff. though it may make you a fortune when people try to keep the jukebox going to beat back the house selections. and she's a really good bartender: i'm not trying to cast aspersions on her bartending abilities...

Posted by objectress on August 18, 2009 at 4:18 PM | Report this comment

three hours longer than intended = ... the month of August?

Posted by notraybourke on August 18, 2009 at 5:50 PM | Report this comment

Add a comment

Author Archives

Most Commented On

Most Emailed Stories

Top Viewed Stories

© 2010