This year’s newcomers to the Bushwick bar scene offered up something for everyone, whether you like to throw back a few beers or sip a finely shaken craft cocktail. Here is our list of our favorite new bars that opened in the neighborhood in 2016!
Darlings
242 Himrod Street
The team at Montana’s Trailhouse opened this New England Patriots bar called Darlings this fall. Darlings shares a wall with Twin Suns deli and yes, it features a secret sandwich drawer so bar patrons can order a small selection of Twin Suns savory signature sandwiches!
The house rotates a couple of draft beers so the bar can offer brews from less well known craft breweries—sticking to spots in and around Massachusetts, when possible.
Dromedary bar
266 Irving Avenue
Owner Michael Lombardozzi has a couple of decades of experience working as a bartender, with a specialty in fine dining cocktail crafting. Dromedary Bar, his first venture as an entrepreneur, is a non traditional tiki bar, and its interior flexes well what being on a bar near the beach might feel like: banana leave colored vinyl booths and sea blue wall.
Now that Galen Duncan of the popular Bushwick pop-up Duncan’s Burgers has signed a five year contract with Dromedary Bar, you can eat a delicious burger while sipping on one of those cocktail forward tiki drinks!
The Footlight
465 Seneca Avenue
Boston-native Laura Regan brought this spot to the area, and it’s arguably the most versatile space to open in either Bushwick or Ridgewood this year.
The Footlight is more than just a bar: it’s an honest to goodness community space, with events every night. From a playgroup on Friday afternoons, to yoga on Wednesday afternoons, to a booked comedy night every Tuesday night, to the re-birth of Bowery Poetry Club’s The Original NYC Talent show on Monday nights, there is no way that you can’t have a good time in Ridgewood.
The acoustics in the back room, which were engineered by the bar’s booking manager and one of its investors, Eric Ryrie, make seeing a show at The Footlight seriously well worth your time.
Starr Bar
214 Starr Street
Located on a quiet section of Starr Street between Irving and Wyckoff avenues, you might not notice it initially, but Starr Bar is making a little more noise than the typical bar in Bushwick.
Starr Bar’s list of events are centered in political culture: for example, in October, they hosted the event “Yeah, That’s What She Said,” where working class and low-income women, women of color, trans women, queer women, and immigrant women took center stage.
Appropriately, a part of their proceeds helps fund Starr Bar’s sister venue, Mayday Community Space.
Precious Metal
143 Troutman Street
Pine Box owners Jeff and Heather Rush opened a side kick to their first bar, Precious Metal, across the street from Castlebraid with a similar stellar list of beers, which the owners tell Bushwick Daily is more “esoteric” than Pine Box.
Turning heads with more than just beers, Precious Metal has cultivated a craft cocktail list with a mind to Bushwick’s vegan community: One of their current house cocktails, The Driven Snow, combines Owney’s Rum, amaretto, almond milk, Earl Grey syrup, and fresh nutmeg. It looks like an egg white frothed cocktail, and is, to say the least, very yummy.
Talon Bar
220 Wyckoff Avenue
This beautiful, expansive bar with a classic tin ceiling and cozy wrap around leather booths is especially great for going out with large groups during the warmer months.
Talon Bar’s awesome courtyard, an uncommon accommodation in the Bushwick bar scene aesthetic, is great for throwing back one or several drinks until 4 a.m. with your buddies.
Did we mention the front bar area now has a a pool table?!
The Stoop BK
853 Wyckoff Avenue
Let this be a public service announcement: The Stoop Bar & Grill makes the classiest cocktails at the most affordable price in all of Bushwick.
Owner Marvin Carbajal designed and named his first entrepreneurial venture after the stoop where he spent a lot of time during his formative years during the 1980s.
In fact, the house’s eponymous cocktail The Stoop, which has Hennesy in it, comes served in a brown paper bag.
And the Smoke Signals, part mezcal and part scotch, is poured into a cinnamon smoked filled glass and is probably the most alcohol for bang for your buck in all of Bushwick.
We recommend soaking up all the liqueur with Jazmin Molina’s churros, too.
The Windjammer
552 Grandview Avenue
This nautically themed bar, which has been named and has sat on the same corner of Grandview Avenue and Bleecker Street since 1982, is under new ownership by one of the owners of Pearl’s Billy & Social Club and has thankfully held onto and untouched the charming, dive bar interior Ridgewood has always loved.
The Windjammer has 17 canned beers for purchase, as well as a pool table, a photo booth, a pinball machine, and Big Buck Hunt for good measure.
This is a one stop bar that works well for groups of friends—keep in mind that if this spot is your destination for the night, you can plan on being out late!
Jupiter Disco
1237 Flushing Avenue
A love of science fiction and music was the inspiration for Flushing Avenue bar Jupiter Disco, when friends and bartenders Al Sotack and Maks Pazuniak first connected, trading books and albums.
As futuristic as fuck, Jupiter Disco’s selection ebbs and flows based off of availability, so, when an ingredient runs dry at the bar, it evaporates from the menu.
In a way, Jupiter Disco feeds the part of our souls that desperately needs to let go of shit, presenting us with a beer or craft cocktail that we can cherish for a short time before we move on with our lives.
Yours Sincerely
41 Wilson Avenue
Yours Sincerely is brought to us the team behind Dear Bushwick Sincerely Burgers—though this cocktail bar is different from anything else in the area.
By making batches of their signature cocktails ahead of time, one of which is called Transmit the Box and features an out of this world chipotle infused mezcal, drinks are poured from one of their 29 tap handles behind the bar and straight into your glass: Patrons are served drinks in beakers, and cocktail recipes are developed in a cocktail laboratory.
Yours Sincerely is turning everything about the cocktail experience on its head by delivering cocktails as little time as it takes to get a beer.
To your health, Bushwick!
Featured image by Alonzo Maciel for Bushwick Daily of Guadalupe Inn’s Fall Fashioned cocktail.