NYCBP Blog

I'm a huge Elvis fan. I never saw him perform live. So this is what I feel like knowing that Chaundra is coming out of retirement after three years away from bartending. She is going to be part of Little Michelle's all-star team at Blue Ruin, which I already told you rocks. The bar on Ninth Avenue and 40th Street will be the place to be on Saturday night.

I can't emphasize enough how awesome a bartender Chaundra is. She worked at three of the greatest saloons in the city (all shuttered): The Village Idiot, Yogi's and Who's on First. The girl INVENTED theme nights with her partner, Jenn. Let me put it to you this way: before Chaundra there was no Nurse Night, Catholic School Girl Night, French Maid Night, etc.

Her bartending skills are incredible. She is so fast and flies around the bar. She is a whirlwind in action. When we had NYCBP awards and voting back in the day, Chaundra cleaned up time and again. She is of course in the NYCBP Hall of Fame, along with so many all-stars. (So is Rachel, formerly of Red Rock West, who works Fridays at Blue Ruin).

Getting Chaundra back behind the bar is like going back to 1999 for me. I can't wait to drink with this woman, and you should not miss out.

Labels: bartenders, dive bars, hell's kitchen

Back in another time and era, pre-October 4, 2008, that is, many of us who had formerly lived on the Upper West Side would regularly make pilgrimages to our dearly beloved Yogi's. Its closing by the real estate sharks made numerous headlines, and far beyond the confines of New York, judging alone by the responses I have personally received about our coverage of its demise.

On the night of its closing, numerous writers, journalists, and photographers showed up both to record this sad event, and also to have one last beer or shot, since at least some of them had puked there more than once.

While trying to navigate through the human sea of beer-worshippers who had gathered there that night, I started talking to this fellow who said he was there covering the closing for VanityFair.com. He said his name was George Gurley, and we talked.

His story, with the politically potent title of "Another Dive Bar Dies in Bloomberg's Manhattan", indeed captured the flavor, sounds, and scent of this bar, from the customers to the music to the bartenders to the bathrooms.

The story included a quote from me that I had wanted to celebrate my 60th birthday at Yogi's. That joyous day was Sunday, March 22, 2009. I had a cold all week, so I postponed any celebratory drinking until my aging body said "beer and vodka" to me instead of "soup and tea."

But I was in the neighborhood to have dinner and shop, so I wandered a few blocks to the intersection of 76th Street and Broadway, and sat down on a wooden bench in the area which separates Broadway. I had passed by the site a few times when it was all boarded up, and had also seen it recently now that the entire building has been ripped down, destroyed, incinerated, obliterated from our lives.

Now I have a photo of it, albeit an unintentionally misty one because I took it late at night with a phone camera, and not a real one.



I think the seeming haze adds a surreal quality to the photo, since all it took to destroy such a vibrant mini-community and oasis of controlled debauchery was the unquenched zeal and greed of a tiny handful of real estate, banking, and political pirates.

I'll be back drinking again very soon, now in my 60th year. I hope to see y'all in the barrooms – unless, of course, you're one of those types of bastards who go around looting and stealing from people like us. Our day is coming, and we'll bury you at the foot of the big beer can mountain. You can count on that, boys.

Labels: beer, dive bars, Eddie Goldman, upper west side, Yogi's

Tommy with Megan at The Patriot.

Could Tommy McNeill have us drinking again at 457 West 17th Street, the former home of Red Rock West? Our “reliable sources” tell us that Tommy, the fleshy proprietor of The Patriot and The Duck, is about to take over the old Red Rock, which closed amid lawsuits, acrimony and much bad karma in May 2008 after a 13-year run.

This is good news for dive bar fans, as it comes on the heels of word that Tommy is busy with carpenters and electricians to ready his third bar—so far unnamed—on East 92nd and Second Avenue (which coincidently, also held the defunct Red Rock Roadhouse, which shuttered two years ago).

Tommy has been the pied piper of dive bars in Manhattan for 20 years. Without him, there would be none of the early 1990s dives that exist today: Coyote Ugly (he gave founder Liliana Lovell her start in the bar game), Hogs ‘n’ Heifers (he was the brains of the original operation) nor Doc Holliday’s (Tommy was an original investor and co-owner, and came up with the name). When he closed the original Village Idiot on First Avenue and 9th Street in 1994, and moved across town to 14th and Tenth, we rejoiced. That place closed in 2004 and his Upper West Side operation, Yogi’s, closed in October 2008. He has been running The Patriot (Chambers and Church) for five years and The Duck (West 112th and Second Ave) for less than six months. With Tommy, it is cheap beer and Johnny Cash tunes at all times. He has done more for the bottom line of Pabst Blue Ribbon and Jack Daniels in New York than any other person.

Could he pull this off in the shadow of the High Line? Of course. We saw him mobilize the bartenders from The Patriot and Yogi’s and move into The Duck in a matter of hours. He has been hiring new girls like crazy for the past several weeks. As soon as the Upper East Side bar opens—which could be in a matter of weeks—he will have his hands full getting the old Red Rock West in shape to open.

Could we see Dara of The Patriot/The Duck at the old Red Rock? We hope so!

What can we expect? When Red Rock West folded, the staff of about a dozen bartenders scattered to the four corners of the city. A couple found spots at Coyote Ugly (where they had to tone down their antics, sad to say). Others moved to the outer boroughs. In the world of Tommy, he will staff the bar with the same girls that work for him at The Patriot and The Duck. Could it open by Memorial Day for Fleet Week? We hope so.

One big change that separates Tommy’s bars from the now-defunct Red Rock is that he never needs hulking bouncers or doormen, who stood around and intimidated the customers. Tommy hires bartenders that run the bars, do the stocking, and handle all the chores at the bar. So we do not think he will even think about re-hiring any of the bouncers or support staff that worked at Red Rock (and this includes the poor soul who had to guard the motorcycles). I can think of only one male face I want to see Tommy bring back: BOB. That dude was the BBQ master, and his hog roasts were legendary. If Bob is grilling, it will be happy days on West 17th Street again.

Tommy is a smart businessman, and savvy where he picks his bars: his new Second Avenue bar is in a prime spot for the Second Avenue Subway when it opens in six years, and even better, when the High Line park opens, his new bar will be in it’s shadow. It looks like 2009 is going to be a great year for dive bar patrons!

Labels: bars, bartenders, chelsea, coyote ugly, dive bars, Doc Holliday’s, news, Patriot Saloon, red rock west, The Duck, Tommy McNeil, upper east side, Yogi’s

The Times has the story today that The Holland Bar is coming back from the dead. This is such good news on so many levels. It is also a sign of the times: The bar got back into its old spot because the landlord couldn't get anyone to rent the space with a jacked up rent.

According to Mr. Kelly, who has owned the bar since 1998, the landlord refused to renew the lease in the hopes that he could make more money converting the building for residential use or selling it off. But such plans apparently did not work out, and the landlord offered Mr. Kelly his old space back starting Jan. 1, albeit at a 20 percent increase in the rent. Now the Holland is scheduled to reopen its taps as soon as Wednesday.

This is great! And I am glad the Times finally is paying attention to dive bars. It totally missed the closing in 2008 of Yogi's and Red Rock West.

Labels: dive bars, drinking, hell's kitchen

Regardless of which holiday you celebrate (or, for people like me, don’t), you can’t help being bombarded this time of year by armies of Santa Clauses, usually seeking a bailout, and from you.

Did you ever wonder where the hell all this money goes? Have you ever received a detailed accounting of who gets what from your handouts? And are you now or have you ever been just a tad suspicious that this “goodwill to all” stuff is merely another scam or racket, just like the stock market?

I was ruminating about just such things the other night at The Patriot Saloon, where I somehow ended up after being a guest on Joey Reynolds’s late night radio talk show on WOR. As I was sitting there, enjoying the lovely Jessica tending bar, and talking with a bunch of old friends who are fellow survivors of Yogi’s, I noticed another one of these Santa guys standing in the bar.

Now, I always wondered why his nose was flaming red, but now I had ironclad, documentary proof: Santa is a big fat boozer, and we caught him red-nosed and red-handed at The Patriot with a beer can in his hand.

So next time one of his cronies tries to bum some dough from you, just ask him if he wants a can or a bottle, laugh, and then walk away. Then go to the nearest dive bar, and if I’m there, buy me a cold one. At least you’ll know where your money went, and, after I hit the can, that while it was in the end flushed down the drain, it was put to good use.

(Photos by Eddie Goldman.)

Labels: beer, dive bars, Eddie Goldman, Patriot Saloon, Santa Claus

A few months ago, we started to chronicle the doings of veteran bartender Lauren. She had just started working at Yogi’s shortly before the real estate sharks destroyed it, and after the bar where she had worked for six years, Fubar, had physically been destroyed by a crane collapse.

More recently, I ran into her Sunday night at The Patriot Saloon, where for that one night she was filling in. But she does now have two regular shifts: Wednesday nights at The Duck, and Friday nights at The Patriot. So go see her, somewhere, anywhere, as often as you can.

Now you really have no excuse ever to stay home!

Labels: beer, dive bars, Lauren, Patriot Saloon, The Duck

Labels: Alyssa, beer, dive bars, Doc Holliday’s, Eddie Goldman

I guess turkey day is the start of what is called the holiday season. That is what all these incessant advertisements and commercials have been insisting, and they wouldn't lie, would they?

For some, this time of year is a busy one, pre-programmed to carry out shopping and all sorts of other rituals. The creative tendencies, whether produced by DNA, experience good and bad, or, more likely, some equation involving the two, tend to get overwhelmed or even crushed in this seasonal onslaught of conformity and commercialism.

Such a time is particularly difficult for those among us who think and, more to the point, act independently. Convention, custom, fashion, and the like count for naught to many of us, unless they can be shown to make sense, to be proved so.

But we, the independent and thinking folk, are a minority. Some of that is by economic necessity, as any economic system will not reward its outsiders.

So what do we do, while the prevailing mores, prejudices, and fears are utilized and manipulated to marginalize us? Sure, we all fight back in our own ways, to varying degrees of effectiveness. But alas, we are also very human, fallible, and emotionally vulnerable, too.

In the meantime, while the existing dumbness prevails, we need to feed our minds and spirits. What the dominant institutions cannot provide our critical minds, we find elsewhere, in the public houses, taverns, barrooms, and honky tonks. These crazy places may be our best refuge from all this insanity. Our problems may not be solved there, but our hearts and minds can be recharged so we can not only survive this season, but continue to go against the tide.

For us NYCBP'ers, this has become a harder task with the closure of so many of our bars like Yogi's this year. But they are still out there, so don't hesitate to free yourself from all this mindlessness. Have a rowdy good time, but remember to tip well.

Labels: beer, dive bars, Thanksgiving, turkey

Labels: beer, country music, dive bars

Yogi's may have closed, but The Duck is a worthy sequel to that hit movie. On opening night, more than 70 customers jammed the new bar in Spanish Harlem, located at 2171 Second Avenue, between East 111th and 112th streets. Owner Tom McNeil was on hand, buying shots. "We're not discovering a new neighborhood," Tom told me, "we're ruining another neighborhood."

I got the first beer. It was served by Bobbie Jean, a Florida gal who used to work Thursday day shift at Yogi's. Bobbie Jean was called up yesterday morning and told to report to The Duck. Likewise for Kate, a cocktail waitress from The Patriot, who pulled her first-ever bartending shift in admirable fashion in the "back room" at The Duck. The flame-haired stunner served the drinks with a big smile.

Tom was asked about the name. The Duck was just a name he used on his business papers when he was trying to think of a name for the new place. He said it doesn't mean anything; but recently he found out that a firehouse around the corner from the bar has a duck mascot. Tom is encouraging customers to come in with letter "D" signs for the bar walls. He would prefer they be stolen, and in true Tom fashion, would most like ones that were shot off from "SOLD" signs. OK...

A few hours into the opening night party, after the jukebox started pumping out familiar tunes and the crowd picked up, Tom treated us with a free ribs spread from Green Apple BBQ, an excellent ribs joint at 362 East 112th St. "Try the pulled pork!" Tom told us, as he slapped down a tray of pig. Poor Kate, a vegetarian... it was dynamite food. So far there is only one giant TV in the front bar, but Tom says they are buying more. I hope they do not come from Yogi's... another great thing, and worth a trip soon, is the bathrooms are pristine. I predict within a week they will be destroyed.

Since I was the first customer, I got the first beer. A Bud Light. Another guy came in behind me and got a PBR. My first shot was Weller Reserve bourbon, on Tom, who said its much better than Jack. "It costs more, but I won't charge more," he said to me.


About the bar: It is twice the size as Yogi's. The front bar is smallish, with an unusual curve design. It has a high ceiling, perfect for dancing. However, it is not long, so it would be hard for more than one bartender to be back there. The back room is pretty long, and has a door that opens to the side street (112th). It has a pool table and lots of seats. The low ceiling would be good for midgets to dance on the bar.

Good news for country music lovers: the same jukebox CDs were moved from Yogi's. Even the song numbers are the same.

It was a great crowd on opening night. Some of the regulars from Yogi's came out, such as Paul Katcher (customer 3) and Bass Ale Man.

Expect good things from The Duck.

More photos here.

Labels: bartenders, dive bars, Harlem, Paul Katcher, The Duck, Tommy McNeil

This Tuesday night, Oct. 7, my nephew was in town, so we went out for dinner at Artie's on Broadway near 83rd Street. I had taken him to Yogi's a time or two, and normally we would have stopped in to see the luscious Theresa, the queen of Tuesday nights for about the last seven or eight years.

Before heading to the restaurant, I passed by Yogi's to see if somehow my recollection that it had closed this past Saturday night was just a hallucination implanted by alien kidnappers from a hostile galaxy, or maybe some falsehood claimed in a campaign attack ad. Maybe I had dreamt it all, and now that the beer from the previous week had worn off (except on my dirty laundry awaiting cleaning), I would discover that it was all some big misunderstanding.

And maybe I would also get a text from Halle Berry saying that her hotel key was under the doormat of room 1410.

The place was dark and locked. It was night when I arrived and hard to see inside, but it looked like any ordinary, boring, spiritless bar. The big labels on the beer taps appeared to have been removed. There were some things littered about, although the liquor bottles still seemed to sit there. And outside, the bear was gone, gone for the first time in about 25 or so years. It was as if its heart and soul had been ripped out.

I only stayed outside the bar a couple of minutes, but in that brief time I heard several passersby commenting on the countdown clock and saying, "They held out as long as they could." If such decisions were left up to the community, and not some faceless real estate bandits, I might be drinking there right now instead of posting this.

My nephew and I both decided to split after dinner instead of getting beers somewhere else. He has a very busy schedule while here, and I just didn't feel like suddenly looking for a new bar home on the Upper West Side after first having gone there, when it was still McGowan's, at some time I now wish I had recorded, in the mid or late 1970's.

That is what Yogi's was to so many of us, a place for our drinking family and a place for our real family. I had taken countless people there from all around the world, and mostly made ready converts of them, even on the slowest of nights.

First what made Yogi's special was the people. While every place has its share of assholes, the people plus the setting made most folks quite friendly, and friendlier than any bar I have frequented either regularly or even a few times.

The music played a large role in that. The main message of the rockin', outlaw country music which filled its semi-functional jukebox was that life and individual happiness should be celebrated. There is a true passion for freedom in these tunes, freedom in the individual and social sense and not just meaning formal freedom like voting, etc. You could celebrate you right there, while drinking your beer, singing and yee-hawing along with the songs, and then trying to wade through the soggy men's room when it was time to unload.

The gorgeous women behind the bar also, of course, made Yogi's special. Most of them, especially the veterans, made you feel right at home. Many of us guys in there couldn't pass as metrosexuals if it meant getting a chunk of that bailout loot. It usually didn't matter quite what you looked like, and especially what you were wearing - so long as you tipped nicely, thank you.

And the cheap, cold beer, that elixir of the common man and woman, was the cornerstone of this perfect quartet which made so many of us fall in love with this filthy, little place.

The people, the music, the women, and the beer - all guarded by the bear, which has since gone missing.

Now we are orphans again, left to search for a new bar home either farther away or with a different vibe. Hopefully The Duck, which opens Thursday, will do well, and there are always gems like Doc Holliday's remaining, but East Harlem and the East Village may be too far to travel for those who liked to get smashed while listening to Merle and Willie on the Upper West Side.

At the behest of drinking buddy Joe, I hung around as long as they would let me to be the last paying customer to exit Yogi's, forever, at this location anyway. He said it was only fitting, since I probably had been going to this bar the longest of anyone there that night, and certainly among the longest.

A crowd hung around outside for some time afterwards, just as it started to rain, as if David Allan Coe went to pick up his mom again. The raindrops hastened everyone's retreat, the countdown clock with all those zeros told the story, and it was over.

The NYCBP.com message boards have some great recaps of the last night there by many of my rowdy friends. I am not posting my fuzzy pictures taken with my camera phone, as there were many folks there with real, fancy, digital jobs who have promised to flood us with these memories. But I still have my pics to save.

The last song played on that ole jukebox was Sawyer Brown's "Some Girls Do." Its line of "I ain't first class, but I ain't white trash" describes a lot of us who walked in the door past that bear. And for those who loved Yogi's, whether or not they were white anything, the line, "Some girls don’t like boys like me, but some girls do", summed up a lot of our experiences, both there and elsewhere.

There is no hiding the sadness so many of us are feeling now that Yogi's is gone. It was surreal knowing what the countdown clock said, and it will take some time and frustrations like I experienced Tuesday night for it to sink in. A lot of us put in some extra tours of drinking duty during this last week at Yogi's, so we may not be all that ready or eager to whoop it up this soon. But the emptiness will hit you, sooner, probably, than later.

Labels: beer, dive bars, Eddie Goldman, New York, Sawyer Brown, Some Girls Do, upper west side, Yogi’s

Labels: beer, dive bars, Eddie Goldman, Yogi's

Such were the instructions of bar owner Tom McNeil, shortly after 2 AM Friday night/Saturday morning, on the next to last night at Yogi’s, to those who were planning to come for the final night of drinking, Saturday, October 4. Presumably he meant only the ladies, but, as we see from some of the photos below, it would not surprise us if some of the Yogi’s men tried to show to the world that they indeed have balls.

I already wrote my Yogi’s epitaph on the chalkboard:

The countdown clock is getting scaringly low:

The lovely Patience was behind the bar:

Plenty of folks jammed the bar for this next to last night:

Labels: bars, beer, dive bars, Eddie Goldman, New York, Tommy McNeil, upper west side, Yogi's

Janet is looking for something here, and is also unsure of where she'll land after Yogi's closes.

The cold, cold hearts of the real estate parasites have robbed us of Yogi's. Will we ever find another home like it again?

Labels: bars, beer, dive bars, Eddie Goldman, Janet, New York, Yogi's

Labels: beer, dive bars, New York, Yogi's

It was a surreal Monday night at Yogi’s. Mondays have been one of the liveliest nights at this bar over the years, and Monday, Sept. 29, was just that, with girls dancing on the bar, outlaw country music blaring from the jukebox, and the gorgeously frenetic bartender Patience looking as radiant as ever.


But this one was different, as it was the final Monday before Yogi’s closes for good on Saturday, October 4. For those who hadn’t heard or believed the news yet, there were signs posted outside and inside the bar:


There was a countdown clock facing the street:


Even the legendary sewer of a bathroom had graffiti with the news:

It will all be over Saturday. Hopefully, however, it will all resume Thursday, October 9, at The Duck and, we wish, at a new Yogi’s near the present one sometime in the future when the economy, finance, and the real estate markets, i.e., the “big money” which is closing down this Yogi’s, allow.

(All photos by Eddie Goldman, thank you.)

Labels: bars, bartenders, beer, dive bars, Eddie Goldman, New York, Patience, upper west side, Yogi’s

On October 4 Yogi's will join the list of shuttered city bars and saloons. It will be quiet at the spot, 2156 Broadway, at 76th Street, for the first time in many years.

This has been a bad year for dive bars. We have lost Red Rock West, Scruffy Duffy’s, Collins Bar, Kevin St. James, and Time Out. Now comes word that the most beloved dive on the Upper West Side is closing up. The building was sold and will be torn down.

Yogi's has been in the Tom McNeil empire for 10 years. Prior to that, the space was the Bear Bar. For decades before that, it was an Irish pub. As Yogi's, it has been an oasis for country music lovers and fans of cheap bar and rowdy barmaids since Clinton was in office. It always delivered the goods: low-price drinks and raucous times. It has several hallmarks: disgusting restrooms, peanut shells on the floor, broken chairs, and sticky surfaces.

But Yogi's always made the list of great NYCBP bars for it's bartenders. Over the years there have been dozens, maybe hundreds, of women to work behind the bar. Some lasted just one night, other clocked in for years. Who was a regular customer of Jenn? Chaundra? Steph? Myriam? Patience? Theresa? Teresa? Lisa Marie? And so many more…

Tom still has The Patriot, and rumors are that he's opening The Duck in Spanish Harlem soon. But for the next week, make a final stop to Yogi’s and pay your respects.

Labels: bartenders, dive bars, patrons, upper west side, Yogi's

Nine-to-fivers will disagree, but for us nocturnal beer drinkers, would that the week had many, many Mondays. That way we could go to Yogi’s several times a week to drink with the electric Janet.

I know some of you had to watch those Robin Byrd shows from twenty years ago on channel 35 and then have dates with Five-Fingered Mary, but you’d have been better off postponing such bliss and heading over to Yogi’s. I got there around 1 AM, and you never know who will wander in.

There was some raven-haired girl dancing to the songs next to the bar. I told her if she danced on the bar, she could become famous. She said no way, and that she was already famous. I then asked her how she had become famous, and she said she’d tell me for a dollar. I wonder what 50 cents would have gotten.

Around 2 AM, guess who moseyed on in?

Labels: beer, dive bars, Eddie Goldman, Janet, New York, Tommy McNeil, Yogi's