• Barred

    Barred: Edison Place

    Photo: ManBeerLove.com

    Photo: ManBeerLove.com

    When: Friday, 12:20am

    I wouldn’t blame you for thinking Edison Place would be the type of establishment lit by its namesake filament bulbs, but pork belly and kale has yet to penetrate Glendale (despite neighboring Ridgewood now having a self-proclaimed gastropub named DISH). It’s still lollipop chicken and caesar salads in the subway-free zones.

    You would not be wrong if you guessed that Journey and Guns N’ Roses might get played. There were a lot of Amstel Light drinkers, a mix of accents (Queens-y and Eastern European), and an admirable sprinkling of non-young, yet non-elderly couples, the latter which conforms to my theory about smaller cities and more traditional enclaves. People just have kids younger so they’re done parenting and back out drinking by their 40s rather than rearing grade-schoolers.

    After a few Bitburgers (and an accidentally broken pint glass, and separately a hard stare for saying “fuck” too loudly) it was time to move on. It wasn’t until I got outside that I realized I’d been in this same space in my 20s when it was occupied by a German restaurant. The bar at Von Westerhagen was the first and last place in NYC where I witnessed overt inter-generational bonding over a dislike of minorities, sealed with honest-to-goodness sieg heils and “white power” said aloud for reinforcement. For the record, I encountered nothing of the sort at Edison Place.

    Age appropriate? Definitely. There’s a direct correlation between age diversity and the distance from lower Manhattan and gentrified Brooklyn.

  • Barred

    Barred: Bar 360

    When: Friday, 4:22pm
    What did I drink? Tanqueray & tonic in a plastic cup ($8).

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    World Resort Casino at the Aquaduct didn’t live up to my not-that-high standards because it lacked three very important casino staples: Keno, free drinks and indoor smoking. I rarely visit casinos because I’m not a gambler, but when I do go I’m not looking out for my health.

    I had to sneak out the propped open doors (no reentry, my ass) along with all the Chinese men to have a cigarette, and was forced to pay my own money for a cocktail. I also lost $24.84 playing slots, which are not my game.

    There were only 12 patrons indoors drinking in Ozone Queens on their Friday off, but three were women clearly over 40. Baseball caps, moustaches and gold chains belonged to the men. One gentleman was using a Kindle with a reading lamp attached, no matter that the bar was lit bright as day from the towering video screens advertising upcoming shows, including a disco event hosted by Deney Terrio (?!)

    Was I carded? No, but there were prominently displayed “We ID” signs.
    Age appropriate? Nearly everyone was old enough to have seen Dance Fever on broadcast TV.

  • Barred

    Barred: Air Bar

    When: Friday, 6:07pm
    What did I drink? Bottle of Stella (?), gin and tonic ($8).

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    I came close to heaven once. In fact, it was around this time last year when I was inexplicably upgraded to business class on Emirates, on an Airbus A380, the double-decker with a real standalone bar (flat beds, showers, whatever) an amenity that seared itself into my brain the first time I saw the ad filled with multi-culti jetsetters. Alas, close doesn’t cut it. Being a flight between Dubai and Hong Kong, apparently not long-haul enough, the bar stood empty, unmanned, no sky party for the attractive and ethnically ambiguous.

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    The closest I’ve come since is the Air Bar in the Sutphin Blvd. AirTrain station/transit hub. There are a lot of wheeled carry-ons propped at tables, there are JFK workers drinking beer and shots while flirting with the bartender in Spanish as she periodically sings Shakira songs along with her iPod, and there are people like me who journeyed to the ends of Queens just for something different to do post-Independence Day, a staycation, if you will.

    Tim Hortons occupies the adjoining space, so you can snack on Timbits while nursing a happy hour (5pm-8pm) Killian’s (which was sold out) or Coors (which no one wanted) and watching The Manhattan Project (teenage Cynthia Nixon) on the TV behind the bar.

    Age appropriate? Sure, there was a cuspy woman sitting at the bar and another, clearly over 60, sitting nearby with a homemade sandwich and a bottle of V8.
    Was I carded? No, but a young man who appeared to be barely out of his teens was, and then proceeded to hit on my 41-year-old friend.