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New York and the $3.00 PBR, Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer has been a God-Send to many New Yorkers. As you all know, the US Economy has been in the Shitter for the past 5 years or so.
It’s not OK, what’s a person to do? So yes, we live in New York, and having a couple cocktails here can be a costly undertaking.. What is a Poor Working Guy or Working Girl to do??? Well Boys and Girls, let’s Thank God for that great thing of wonder and the Bars and establishments who so graciously and kindly serve it, The $3.00 PBR, That’s right, a $3.oo Beer in The Land of The Over-Priced $16.00 Cocktail, Manhattan, New York, NY….. It’s quite Sad, Greedy too, not to mention “Ridiculous Ludicrous and Insane.”
Copyright 2008 Daniel Bellino Zwicke
PLACES To GET A $3.00 PBR in NEW YORK
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SOPHIE’S
505 East 5th Street NY NY
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A talented Playboy staff writer once defined a dive bar as a “church for down-and-outers and those who romanticize them, a rare place where high and low rub elbows—bums and poets, thieves and slumming celebrities. It’s a place that wears its history proudly.”
A truer description of the Lower East Side watering hole Sophie’s could not have been written. On East 5th Street in Alphabet City, Sophie’s is like a shout out to a time now past, back when the Lower East Side was the denizen of punks and artists, before gentrification set in with its high end shops, expensive hairstylists, and upscale wine shops. Though Jeff Bridges and Anthony Bourdain have both been sighted at Sophie’s, you still have to pass a group of junkies spacing out on cardboard planks to get to the joint, which bears no sign.
On SOPHIE’S
Anthony Bourdain put it succinctly when he visited Sophie’s in 2009. “I don’t want no wide screens, high-fiving white guys, no fauxhawks or gel heads or hot chicks with douchebags,” he said. “I don’t want anything on the jukebox that will distract an old gentleman such as myself from drinking the heart right out of the afternoon if I should choose to do so … Where can a guy get a drink when the last gin mill closes down, when there’s nothing left but the fern bar or the lounge, when the barkeep has been replaced by a mixologist?”
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BLUE & GOLD BAR
BLUE & GOLD BAR in the East Village, on East 7th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues. Blue & Gold has long been a favorite of mine ever since I lived in the East Village from 1982 to 1994. It’s just a cool ol normal old style bar with a pool table, standard 50’s 60’s Bar Decor, and Best-of-All $3.oo PBR’S and $6.00 Cocktails. I love it.
7B a.k.a. The Horseshoe Bar, also in the East Village, a bastion of cheap and fare prices in Manhattan and Land of The $3.00 PBR and other $3 and $4 Beers. 7B is located on the corner of Avenue B at 7th Street, hence the name “7B” … The nickname Horseshoe Bar comes from the shape and dimensions of the bar, “Horseshoe Shaped.” The bar has been the setting of numerous movie shoots, including the scene in Godfather II when Frankie Pantangeli (Frankie 5 Angels) goes to this bar for a meeting with the Rosato Brothers, and Danny Aiello raps a Piano-Wire around his neck.
A scene from the movie starring Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dundee and other movieswere shot here as well …. But Best of all, at 7B they serve $3.00 Beers, cheap drinks, and they have a photo and sell Potato Chips and Pretzels which practically no bars in Manhattan ever do any more. And this is a good thing when you get the munchies from the Beer. Glory Hallelujah, thank God for 7B ..
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Lucy’s Bar is the most aptly named bar in New York. For Lucy—the quiet and small and sweetly proper Polish owner with the well-coifed gray hair and floral blouses—is who you’ll see when you go there, and Lucy is the one who will serve you. If there are other employees, they’ve hidden themselves somewhere in the back.
Though Lucy’s is undeniably a dive (and one of the last in the neighborhood), it feels more like your aunt’s aging rec room, a place where you’d never think of disrespecting the house’s hospitality. It’s also one of the last vestiges of the Polish community that was once made up a significant part of the East Village’s character.
Ludwika “Lucy” Mickevicius moved from Poland to New York in the late 1970s and soon got a job at Blanche’s, a bar on St. Mark’s Place run by another Polish woman. She became such a fixture that people began to think of the bar as Lucy’s, and, when Blanche retired, she sold the place—by then located on Avenue A—to her bartender.
Lucy’s life doesn’t range much further than the twin poles of her joint and Poland, which she visits regularly, shutting up the tavern at a moment’s notice and disappearing for weeks at a time. Most nights, she stations herself at the far end of the bar near the ancient cash register. (It’s cash only here.) One recent evening, the Halloween balloons hadn’t yet been taken down. Then again, assorted Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations were already out. Maybe none of the decorations are ever packed up?
Lucy doesn’t budge much behind the bar, but she keeps herself busy for a woman in her mid-70s. She will draw you a pint or a glass of tequila. And, if she likes you, she might pour you a shot of żubrówka, a Polish bison grass vodka, on the house. When the place gets stuffy, she’ll swing open the door to let some fresh Avenue A air in; just as quickly, she’ll close it if it gets chilly.
The clientele ranges from a less-intense sort of downtown hipster, who exchange a few friendly words with Lucy—who, even all these years later, still speaks in broken, accented English—and then retire to their personal conversations, to old Polish regulars. In fact, on another recent night, a young couple came in to show Lucy their young child. All four spoke entirely in Polish and a delighted Lucy let the little scamp climb atop the pool table. As they left, she handed the kid one of the old Halloween balloons. For those few minutes, Lucy’s was a family bar.
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RUDY’S
Hell’s Kitchen
Rudy’s is an institution, reportedly granted one of the first liquor licenses after Prohibition was repealed in 1933. The All-American special, a shot of Seagram’s whiskey and a pint of Rudy’s Blonde Ale, runs a Lincoln, flat. (The deal formerly known as the Stimulus Package came about in 2008, when a different liquor company was pushing a deal.) Pitchers cost $8 and hot dogs are free. “You could walk in with $10, get a pitcher, which is 4 pints, and get a meal of a couple hot dogs while also tipping your bartender,” says Danny Dee, Rudy’s manager since the ‘90s. “That’s completely impossible at any other bar.”
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Lower East Side
If Clockwork’s happy hour special seems too good to be true, you’ve got a little good old fashioned neighborhood competition to thank. Located right around the corner, 169 has been in operation since 1916. And its 11:30am-7:30pm HH is among the best in the city. $3 will get you an “Old Man Can/Bottle” of beer (PBR, Carling Black Label, Schaefer, Genesee Cream, High Life/Miller Lite) and any well shot. Subtly New Orleanian environs (window shutters look like they’re fresh off a Creole cottage; beads are strung here and there; there’s crawfish on the menu) evoke genuine good times.
GOT ANY KAHLUA ?
The BIG LEBOWSKI COOKBOOK
Daniel Zwicke
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The BEST THING I EVER ATE !!! 