A Peaceful, Cheap, Friendly Neighborhood Bar on St. Marks!

Grassroots Tavern was the first bar I ever went to in NYC and it was just 2 doors down from the hotel I was staying at – St. Marks Hotel in East Village.  It was Halloween day when I arrived and after settling in, I took a walk down the street to see what kinds of food and drink were around.  The Grassroots Tavern sign caught my eye, and otherwise I never would have known it was a bar – pretty discreet from the outside.  The sign had grass, flowers and water on it, and drew me in.

I stepped downstairs from the street into a basement-like door, into a dark, long and narrow bar.  The friendly bartender greeted me as I took a seat at the bar.  There were only about 5 other patrons in there at the time (it was only 5:45pm on a Monday)  - a few guys at the end of the bar and one older man sitting solo enjoying some bar popcorn and an Amstel Light. He later gave me advice on getting to the NYC Halloween Parade later that night.  

It was happy hour from 4-8pm which meant $2 draft pints and $2 off pitchers, $4 glasses of wine and $5 for a small bottle.   You really can’t beat those prices in any cite, let alone New York City. They have a popcorn machine with $2 bowls of popcorn, and as other patrons started coming in as the time went by, a lot of them were bringing in their own outside food and eating it at the tables along the wall parallel to the bar.

I happily ordered a $2 pint of a beer I had never heard of and was pleasantly surprised.  Everyone in there was friendly and it had the feel of a neighborhood bar.  Most of them knew the bartender by name and vice versa.  There was a jukebox in the back, which is always a plus and dart boards as well.

The most interesting part of my experience at Grassroots Tavern was the trick-or-treating children that would come inside and march right up to the bar to ask for candy from the bartender. I had never seen children in a bar, let alone children trick-or-treating in a bar, but apparently in NYC that is the norm.  

Grassroots Tavern was my first of many NYC bar experiences and remains a favorite on my list.