O'Donoghue's Tavern

I have been coming to Nyack for decades and just discovered this neighborhood tavern early one Sunday afternoon when the trendy cafe in town was packed with lycra bodied cyclists. O'Donoghue's was a welcome relief from that hipster scene, believe me! The scrambled eggs and homefries were as fresh as I have ever tasted and the bottomless cup of joe, in today's era of designer coffees, was a welcome addition. I heard from the locals that it's just a great hangout, for a quick meal or a couple of pops after work. Four stars.

Od's is a famous local watering hole in Nyack that has been a favorite with the locals for decades. A few years ago it started on a decline (although the food was always good) and it was finally purchased by new owners about a year and half ago. Changes included adding a juke box and many TV sets which I think detracted from the original decor, but I understood the business reasons.

As of late, it is still the regulars there and while they have a well respected music program including a thursday night electric jam and a monday night acoustic jam, the place recently shut down during the day, canceling the lunch service monday through thursday and changing opening hours to 3pm on those days.

All the locals are rooting for it to come back, but right now it is a bar in transition. Still has the best burgers in town though

My friend and I decided to stop in O'Donoghue's Tavern during our St. Patrick's Day celebrations, as we had just moved to Nyack, and had been thoroughly enjoying some of the nightlife the town has to offer. We thought an Irish bar seemed like the perfect atmosphere in which to experience St. Patrick's Day. However, we quickly discovered that O'Donoghue's Tavern isn't your average Irish bar.

I soon found out that my choice of alcoholic beverage - the classic Irish Car Bomb, considered by many to be the quintessential St. Patrick's Day cocktail - just simply wasn't compatible with the elegantly high-class standards one must adhere to in this rundown plywood shack. An old man with long white hair who was standing behind the bar (I hesitate to refer to him as a "bartender," because that would imply that he did his job of properly tending the bar) boorishly informed me that I wouldn't be served any kind of "crazy alcoholic drink," because he'd have to "spend the whole day cleaning up my puke from the bathroom." I was a bit taken aback by this, especially since I monitor my consumption of alcohol responsibly, and was by no means close to being wasted; my friend who had accompanied me was also clearly close to being completely sober. I also didn't quite understand how it would take "all day" to flush a toilet that had vomit in it, or why this wasn't a task I would be capable of undertaking myself.

My friend promised the old man (who turned out to be the owner) that we weren't going to get sick all over his bar, or start randomly smashing his bottles to bits and pieces in a belligerent rampage somehow fueled by a single Irish Car Bomb. He responded by stating that she did not look like a trustworthy person, and that her promise meant absolutely nothing to him. It's a sheer delight to be in the presence of such a warm and welcoming host, who is refreshingly honest about his complete lack of faith in humanity.

If you're just looking for a place where you can drink and have a good time, I would suggest you instead visit one of Nyack's many other wonderful bars. However, if you're looking for a place where you can be insulted and deemed an "alcoholic" because you had the audacity to order a popular cocktail, or a place where every time you want to order another round, you'll have to successfully assure the comically emetophobic owner that you will remain sober enough to manage to avoid coating the entire surface area of his establishment in a thick sheen of vomit, or if you simply want to experience the almost paradoxical phenomenon of the only Irish bar in the world where it is considered inappropriate to be drunk on St. Patrick's Day, then look no further than O'Donoghue's Tavern.