Paradox paradise: This bar is your bar, this bar is my bar

photo: Joshua Farley

Did you hear the one about . . . ?

Details

Johnny's Bar
90 Greenwich Avenue
212.741.5279

Related Content

• What The Lineup For Clear Channel's iHeartRadio Music Festival Says About Radio Formats In 2011
  July 11, 2011
• Your CMJ 2010 Panels, Cynically Summarized: Day 4 (Friday)
  October 22, 2010
• Top 25 Headlines Not As Weird As "Dave Sitek Joins Jane's Addiction"
  January 4, 2011
• Behind the Music: Hitting All the Wrong Notes in The Perfect Age of Rock 'N' Roll
  August 3, 2011
• Week in Review: Where For Art Thou, Masta Killa?
  January 7, 2011

More About

• Jane's Addiction
• Food and Cooking
• Eating Out

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Weekly Newsletter: (Sent out every Thursday) Our weekly feature stories, movie reviews, calendar picks and more - minus the newsprint and sent directly to your inbox.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Nearly everything about Johnny's defies pigeonholing: Call its patrons beer swillers, then watch them ask the bartender for the martini menu; call its jukebox Motown, then Jane's Addiction starts blaring; call it a straight bar and the fags come out of the woodwork. Even its location doesn't quite jibe: to one side, swanky Cafe de Bruxelles; across Greenwich Avenue, sporty Equinox; and in the middle, Johnny's, the dive with the neon-red "BAR" sign and the walk-up window. Inside, drinkers and drunks are mixing like the tequila and amaretto of the Black Cow shot ($3.25), smoothly yet a little strangely. Conversations heat up as social barriers melt away over glasses of Guinness ($5) and Anchor Steam ($4.50). The punk, the computer programmer, and the stand-up comedian are cooing about how everyone seems so welcome here—but what's that sign on the cash register say, "BUMS 645-3220"? Maybe some are more welcome than others. A happy hour speaks volumes about a place, and Johnny's has seven of them, starting at noon with two-for-ones and switching to $3.25 well drinks from 3 to 7 p.m. At these prices, you can afford to buy a total stranger a beer and see to what absurd heights the conversation leads.