When: Thursday, roughly 8pm

Until that promised Señor Frogs opens in the base of my office building, Réunion will remain the only beachy drinking spot around Times Square. I had been under the impression that this was an after-work hangout–and maybe it is–but by true evening the subterranean space plastered with surfboards is occupied by a clientele that is obviously just post-college, recently transplanted–and not to the boroughs.

Upon squeezing into a space at the bar to try and peek at the taps (frozen drinks are more the thing) a young man seated on a bamboo stool handed us a drinks menu unprompted. Later, a different young man bumped into me and said “sorry,” further blowing my mind with politeness and the dawning realization of how abusive Brooklyn kids truly are.

Wholesome was the decided upon adjective for this scene. I’ve never seen an episode of How I Met Your Mother (I accidentally saw part of the series finale, I’ll admit) but this is how I imagine the characters being in the early seasons. And to further the model millennial atmosphere foreign to cooler neighborhoods, the crowd was surprisingly multicultural with every race downing Riptides (Midori, lemon juice and blue curaçao) in harmony.

Was I carded? Yes, and scrupulously so. It would only take a one-second glance up from the ID to recognize a face that’s no lie.

Age appropriate? Maybe on the earlier side. I shared a chuckle with an older blonde, business-attired woman in the bathroom when a guy walked in mistakenly as we were washing our hands, yet when I looked for her a few minutes later she was nowhere to be seen, making me think I’d been hallucinating the whole exchange.