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Barred: Probably All Bars in Vegas
As is the case with the other, maybe the only, US city where you can consume alcohol 24 hours a day and up until recently could smoke indoors, New Orleans (duh), Las Vegas provides one of the more democratic drinking experiences you’ll probably find in this country. I guess vice is a middle-age magnet. Or maybe it’s that you could spend all day and night drinking for free-to-$3 a beverage and that’s a boon to those on fixed incomes.
You’ll notice, though, that while I stayed two nights on the strip and two nights downtown, I did not hang out at any bars on the main drag so I’m really only speaking to off-strip characteristics.
Age appropriate?
Fireside Lounge: Yes, girl’s nights and 40something dates.
Hennessey’s Tavern: Yes, white-haired couples.
All sitting outside (I was the only one indoors during the day) because these Vegas good-timers do not care one lick about sun damage.
Freedom Beat: Yes, more white-haired couples.
The Parlour Bar: Yes. In fact, at the 4pm-7pm and 11pm-to-close happy hours, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone under 40. I was fascinated by a va-va-voom 40-ish Asian woman with a mixed race mildly hip man two decades younger because I assumed it was a mother and son, but why would I assume that? A nice “functioning alcoholic” (his words) with gout decided to chat with me until security threw him out because he’d already been banned from the El Cortez. The guy on my other side threw himself out and started screaming obscenities at the man next to him. I patronized this bar four times.
All casino floors: Not technically bars but free drinks are available from roving waitresses (and they are all waitresses) if you can flag them down, and little matters like walkers, scooters, and oxygen tanks do not prevent any women from planting themselves at slot machines for hours on end.
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Barred: Tokyo Edition
I can’t exactly generalize about bars in Japan because I’m not sure I went to to totally representative ones.
I can say:
No one cards (me) in Tokyo.
You can smoke in 90% of bars.
Whiskey highballs are so popular you can get them in cans at 7-Eleven.
Women drink alone, which was surprising.
Spoiler: I did not feel too old to be anyplace I went.
Age appropriate? Yes. I technically went to two Kirin Cities. On my last night, in Shinjuku, just before closing, and a middle-aged couple were eating and drinking. I spent probably 2 hours in another Kirin City, in the basement of Tokyo Station drinking beers and shots, which the Japanese don’t seem to do. The after-work crowd consisted of mostly men, and I even got to experience a salaryman on the left side, passed out, slumped against the wall, though there were women interspersed, like one for every five men. I was surprised that it didn’t seem weird at all for solo ladies to be at the bar. A mousy woman in her 20s was on my other side, eating a basket of tortilla chips with chopsticks and working her way through three beers. Impressive. I do not doubt that she was the human Aggretsuko (the new secretly rage-filled, beer-drinking, heavy metal-singing Sanrio character).
Age appropriate? Oh yes, gloriously so. This bar was like a movie set, wood-paneled and smokey, bartenders in vests, the menus looking straight-up 1980, whiskey starting at $3 a glass (and well on up). Patrons under 40 were the exception not the norm. A++
Baird Taproom
Age appropriate? Yes. Just off the Harajuku fray, this izakaya showcases Baird Beer, a Japanese craft brew. The bar seating on a Saturday afternoon was commandeered by a group of middle-aged tourists that I wanted to say were English but that’s just because the English have a drinking reputation. Once again, a young Japanese woman sat alone on my row of stools facing the window. She had two large beers (not the smaller size) and left. And I was impressed again.
Age appropriate? Yes. I expected an Irish bar in Tokyo to be an expat hang, but the only Irishman present was the ruggedly handsome, Japanese-speaking owner and bartender. A tough 40-something Japanese woman rounded out the staff. There was a group of dressy men, clearly regulars, clustered at the bar. The tables were occupied by large mixed gender groups, not all young. I went back twice and the second time the bartender remembered our order: Kirin and shots of Jameson.
Old Imperial Bar
Age appropriate? Yep. I can’t really imagine this place is a draw for youth. On a weekday afternoon this mezzanine bar was almost empty while the lobby lounge was hopping. When I was seated, I was given architecture books with pages marked to show the bar’s original Frank Lloyd Wright details. I guess they assume that tourists wouldn’t accidentally stumble into this bar unless they knew what they were doing and/or were history buffs. A man wandered in and drank coffee, a lone woman, roughly my age was seated at the very long bar, drinking a cocktail.
Gen Yamamoto
Age appropriate? Sure. The only other woman present among the 5 who reserved at the 8-seat bar at 6pm on a Sunday was 30-ish with a hint of a Nuyorican accent yet she was from L.A. She and her boyfriend had been traveling around the world for a year and could never get their body clocks straight. So, I originally thought that if you had $60 to spend on a flight of tiny cocktails, you might be older with more disposable income, but then I remembered that there are people who don’t even work at all.
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Venue for 35-and-Up Crowd to Play ’70s, ’80s and ’90s Jams — but no ‘Noise’
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Barred: The Astor Room
When: 6:32pm, Saturday
I’ve been to The Astor Room a surprising amount of times for someone who doesn’t live in Astoria (and used to live in Carroll Gardens). I’ve brought my mom and grandma there for happy hour when they’ve visited and I think we ended up drunk and teary. I honestly don’t remember–two-for-ones will do that–but I have a photo of my grandma and one of the bartenders.
This Saturday I took the only open seat and happened to sit next to the only other woman who was solo and appeared to be over 40. She read as a regular, drinking white wine and eating hummus, and ordering another glass declaring, “I’m not feeling it. It’s weak.” I thought she might be Middle Eastern, long chestnut hair, dark features, shades of Amal Clooney, but turned out to be French.
This was her break from her husband and kids. She was supposed to be detoxing and not drinking wine or eating hummus. Her husband is on her about her weight. She used to cry about being a size 6 and now she is trying to get back there. We were both 5′8″. I am on a size 14/16 cusp, she was no more than a 10. I told her about when I was an exchange student for a month in France my host family said, “We knew you were an American at the train station because you were so big.” I weighed 50 pounds less than I do now at 17. And how I’m about to head to Seoul where clothing sizes are one size because it’s assumed all women are like 0-4.
I couldn’t help but ask how old she was. 45. I told her my age in exchange. She said, “You don’t look 44. Never tell anyone that you are.” So French.
Was I carded? There is no gatekeeper, and I can’t imagine any yahoos wandering into this basement.
Age appropriate? Definitely.
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Barred: Seamstress
When: Roughly 8pm, Monday
I in no way think of Seamstress as a special occasion bar. It just happens that it was the best choice close to Tanoshi open on Christmas (where I ended up making out with an adult goth who thought I was a millennial because I up talk when everyone knows millennials vocal fry) and it now seemed liked a post-Tanoshi tradition, which is where I went for my birthday.
I was irrationally excited to see a butterfly pea flower cocktail, All the Way (vodka, butterfly pea flower, cherry, soda, lime, Peychauds) which seemed like a 4th of July holdover, red, white, and blue.
I was irrationally unexcited to hear the two women two years from 30 sitting next to me talk out loud (though neither particularly frying or upping their vocals). Apparently, they have a boring friend who’s a teacher in Saratoga Springs who wants to be an executive assistant but still has an AOL email (way boomer, no?) and texts photos of other friends’ babies. “It must be a stress on her to be independent,” said one who was also hoping she would be pregnant before another friend’s bachelorette party.
Was I carded: Not even close.
Age appropriate: Definitely. The crowd, particularly dining, is very mixed. The Upper East Side is fascinating that way. I was convinced a few years ago that that’s where all the great guys were hiding out like a bizarro Brooklyn, though I never really pursued that angle.
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Barred: Vander Bar
When: 4:24pm, Friday
I wouldn’t have even known about the existence of Vanderbar if I hadn’t stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel earlier this year. It’s just a generic sports-ish bar balding-but-not-old guys with wedding rings hit before heading home on Metro-North, and where the female bartenders pay far more attention to these men than the women sitting in front of them attempting to get service or pay a bill. It was hard to properly suss out the action because simply turning one’s head makes these men think you’re checking them out.
After becoming afraid to turn my head, I just had to eavesdrop on the threesome (two men, one woman who wasn’t drinking) next to me and try to deduce if the guy who said “I’m too old for this shit” also said he was 38 or 28. After discussing “being late bloomers” as in only recently starting to drink alcohol, I couldn’t take it anymore and gawked. Twenty-eight definitely.
Was I carded? No.
Age appropriate? It says a lot of you’re too old for this shit and you’re not even 30. But no, this is not an exclusive venue.
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Barred: The Churchill
When: 4:40pm, Friday
I ended up at The Churchill after drinking an expensive cocktail at Marta after discovering they no longer have a happy hour (I also discovered the cocktail wasn’t as expensive as it initially appeared as the restaurant is one of Danny Meyer’s latest to go tip inclusive). I wanted a beer no-fuss. At this hour, at least, it was very neighborhood-y, solidly middle-aged-plus.
I couldn’t help but butt into the conversation happening on my left after hearing “At my age, age-appropriate women don’t go out alone to bars.”
Then doubly-nosy, “Do you mind me asking how old you are?”
The 72-year-old who’d given up on meeting women in bars also turned out to have two daughters around my age, one 42, with a boyfriend in his early 30s. The more I parsed, the more I liked.
As is often the case, I stayed longer than intended and started discussing my long distance relationship with strangers who never ever think it’s a good idea and then I relay this to the other member of this long distance relationship because I’ve had too much to drink and that’s always an even worse idea. I’ll learn eventually.
Was I carded? No. I don’t think young people would try sneaking in here.
Age appropriate? For sure. Despite my big mouth, it was a fun early evening, and nice to talk to British couples in their 50s who come across as sensible just because they have an accent even if they might also be drunk
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Barred: Sweet Afton
When: 4:36, Wednesday
I have been feeling jealous of Astoria over the summer since I’ve been getting to know it better now that I have a doctor in the neighborhood. Sure, all the things I’m craving are like Brooklyn-lite or Brooklyn 2009 (“young people know their pickles” my notes read) but living in a no good cheese or bread or cocktails zone can wear an aging person down.
Seeing a day-ish-drinking woman sitting alone, who was old enough to remember Jane Fonda workouts and Jamie Lee Curtis in Perfect made me happy. Though it turned out she was waiting for her niece and the bar was her choice. Once she arrived, they got a private table. Somehow that changed my perception.
Was I carded? No.
Age appropriate? In spirit, but barely in practice. I ended up having my 44th birthday here because it seemed chill, though.
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Barred: The Jar Bar
When: 5:22pm, Wednesday
Between the necessarily tough Irish bartender and the women at the end of the bar who were beyond even pretending to be young, one tan with short shorts, spaghetti straps, exposed midriff, and big silver crucifix necklace, her friend with pink hair, I loved The Jar Bar the second I walked in even though I was afraid I might get assaulted by the angry, stuttering man who took up residence right next to me and only required a few seconds to determine if he had Tourette’s and was beloved by all and I should be polite or drunk, damaged, and/or potentially dangerous.
“You’ve got 30 seconds to wrap this fucking conversation up,” the bartender said while calling him a cab.
“You are legally obliged to fuck off if I tell you to fuck off,” she added while he mumbled and sulked.
Because it’s Sunnyside you will hear a lot of accents and you will hear The Waterboys. Also, everyone smokes–there’s a patio out back.
Was I carded? Are you kidding?
Age appropriate? In spades. I’m not convinced there was anyone under 40 in the place.
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Barred: El Quijote
When: 5:30, Friday
Popped-up for a quickie gin and tonic pre-Olive Garden because who knows how much longer El Quijote will be around? Has there ever been a revamp that pleased old-timers and newcomers alike?
Older, dressed-up couple: “Can we have a booth? We came early.”
Maître’d: “Of course.”
Only two others were at the bar, including one woman, white hair pulled back and put together in a manner that can only be described as “smart.” Slim, pencil skirt, booties, she could’ve been 46 or 56. She didn’t eat her gratis tapa, a surprisingly good wedge of tortilla, or bread, which is, I suppose, how one maintains such straight, clean lines.
Was I carded? Nah
Age appropriate? That’s kind of the point.