Mars Bar, New York

It was last July that I travelled to NYC for the first time with a friend of mine. We spent most of the time sight-seeing and drinking. By our final night (a Sunday) we had been to some really great bars, but on this night we were having trouble finding a bar that was still open. I had seen this bar earlier and suggested seeing if it was still open. It was...so in we went. I would have loved to have seen our faces as we walked through the door. What had we let ourselves in for? I ordered two bottles and we tried to take in ...the decor...the punters...the staff. My immediate thought was to neck the bottle and get out as fast as possible. What we did do was calm down and enjoy the place. So we stayed for another bottle, I went outside for a cigarette and got involved with a group of folks with an acoustic guitar. One impromptu singalong to War Pigs later and I was in my element. 2:45am on a New York street singing Black Sabbath with a bunch of friendly lunatics....what could be better? Will definitely go back next time I come over. I haven't even mentioned the crazy girl that served us....BRILLIANT! Oh yes....and I did try the toilets!

Filthy, disgusting, dirty, and amazing. Best bar I've ever spent a Christmas evening. Cheap drinks. Great atmosphere. One of the few genuine bars left in a city that has been mostly sold to Disney. Survived Herr Guilliani's purge of non-Disney-eque places in NYC. A truely great place to get drunk...

Four of my friends and I walked into this bar on a small pub crawl and three quarters of the clientele left. We inquired with the bartender why and she said, "They thought you were NARCS." AWESOME! Oh, beware of the the Trainspotting-esque bathrooms.

This place is the Funkiest Little bar I think I've ever been...The fact that it had so much cool yet unknown art on the walls really is what got me at first...but then when a customer told the bartender she shouldn't be eating all the time because she'll get fat, she let out a big burp and blew it in his face, that was the icing on the cake! This bar has attitude...and I just dug it! That was on a Monday afternoon, I can't imagine what a Saturday night in there would be like!

The most awesome dive EVER. Tied with The Holiday on 8th Street, but dirtier, funkier, artier, and just plain STRANGER. I lived a block away for the first 5 years of my marriage, and it was our local. So cheap! So sinister! The biggest shots of "tequila" on Planet Earth, great bar staff, bizarre regulars, loonies and nitwits and archarchists and archangels all stuffed in together. Still miss Jay.

The only place in NYC I could take my drink with me to smoke, and then simply smash the glass when i'm done. made for an amazing evening, one i will never forget, until about A street and 1st when i started to puke. Watch out in the bathrooms!