1) As much as I like all types of booze, I am first and foremost a beer snob.
2) While I will drink just about anywhere, I am not really a "dive" bar kind of guy. This primarily stems from my aforementioned beer snobbery, but additionally, if I'm going to leave my apartment and spend money, I like a little atmosphere, as it were.
With that said, could I fall in love with a dive bar with a grand total of zero beers on tap in which I only spent ten minutes? The answer in this case is an overwhelming "Yes."
I had heard that Tracy Westmoreland of Siberia fame had opened up a bar on Washington Ave. and decided that on a brisk Easter evening I would venture down the street to check out my neighborhood's newest watering hole. Now, I had never been to Siberia, but reading reviews of it, it didn't sound like it'd be the place for me. A New York Magazine review of a documentary about Siberia had this say about the bar:
"The dank watering hole served as a postmodern Algonquin club for "Page Six" reporters and struggling writers....Siberia was the kind of place you went to drink to forget...But some memories remain: "One time Tracy interrupted our conversation to go throw some guy in a Dumpster and then returned to our conversation," says former "Page Six" scribe and current Maxim editor Chris Wilson. One of his fondest recollections of the bar is the night he did shots with CNN's Lou Dobbs.
Another is the time when, just for fun, Westmoreland ordered his clients to hurl his entire inventory — several thousand dollars worth of alcohol — against the wall. "I put it up in the pantheon with Max's Kansas City, CBGB, Mudd Club," said Wilson. "I think they all occupy the same shadow of awesomeness." "
While this might sound fun to most, it sounded a little forced to me. The impression I got from reading about Siberia was of a bar that fashioned itself a dive bar simply because it thought being a dive bar would be cool. I mean, come on. If Lou Dobbs is hanging out at the place, it's hard to fathom how it could actually occupy the same "shadow of awesomeness" as CBGB. Generally speaking, if Lou Dobbs feels safe in your totally hardcore, anything goes, dive bar, then you probably don't operate an actual totally hardcore, anything goes, dive bar.
With this as my background, I sauntered on down to the Manhattans by my lonesome on the aforementioned Easter evening. There was no sign up yet and the front windows were covered in newspapers, so I could only tell that the place was open by putting my ear to the door. I went inside and found a small bar with about eight people sitting around, a few bare-bones shelves of your basic liquors, an offering of a few standard beers in cans and bottles, and absolutely no taps.
I took a seat at the bar between two small groups of people and ordered a whiskey on the rocks, thinking I could just slam that back and get the hell out of there. After the bartender, Sam, took my order and brought back my drink, he said, "Hey, weren't you in here the other night?" To which I responded, "No." He then proceeded to introduce himself, got my name, shook my hand, and went back to helping one of the few other patrons. A friendly enough guy, I thought, and I always like bars with a friendly staff. So after I sat there for a minute by myself drinking my whiskey, the bar tender comes back over, not to see if I need anything, but to make sure he had remembered my name correctly. This, as you can imagine, I thought was pretty great. We then chatted for the next five or so minutes while I finished my drink. As a fan of friendly people and bar talk with strangers, I left thinking the Manhattans would be an okay place for either.
I got up and made my way to the door when one of the gentlemen in the group to my right tapped me on the shoulder. Turns out it was Tracy Westmoreland himself. He stopped me to introduce himself and get my name, which he made it a point to remember by, much like his bartender, asking a few times to make sure he still had it right. Tracy and I chatted for a few minutes. He asked me if I knew of any performing artists or bands (he asked it in that order, which I thought was interesting) that would want to play there that weekend because, as he said, "why the fuck not?" We talked for a little bit more and then I left feeling like an idiot for being so cynical about all of the reviews I read about Siberia. After meeting him I knew immediately that I would have loved the place. Hell, I knew why Lou Dobbs, or anyone for that matter, loved the place. Tracy is just a genuinely nice and friendly guy who likes drinking and likes doing it on the cheap. The more guys like him that own bars, the better.
What it all comes down to is the measure of a bar is more than just the drinks they serve and the look of the venue in which they're served. It's the people. The people that own it, the people that tend bar there, and the people that frequent it. So long as Tracy and Sam constitute the former, I will definitely constitute the latter.
