I really like this bar. The only thing that would make me like it more is if it had a pool table. Crazy cheap beers ($2 michelob's). The bartenders are really fun old metalheads, that have great stories and will sometimes give you a beer on the house. Really, it's just a super cozy dive bar with a nice mix of younger hipsters and older neighborhood guys.
My favorite bar in Greenpoint.
At a friend's house in Greenpoint we were given the choice of going to a couple of hipster bars or a "dirty old man bar that has metal in the juke box". Â "Dirty old man bar!" Â was the clear choice. Â Then I was informed that going to the Women's bathroom was like walking into the Shining. Â Fantastic! Â John, the bartender, is an old rocker who kept us drinking and told us the best terrible jokes. Â The way to the women's bathroom is totally weird and awesome and I won't say anymore about it. Â Discover it for yourself! Â Really great juke box full of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and so on. Â I had a great night at the Palace.
Review Source:Bonus points for this place. Came here with a group after midnight and one of the girls left without telling anyone so she could hit up the ATM down the street. The bartender got my attention and and told me what she was doing so that I could catch up with her to walk with her. Props to him for awareness.
Adding to the bartender's awesomeness, because I was driving, he offered to make me "the best water in town!"
Atmosphere was chill, the music was good, and the air conditioner was frosty and delicious! Will definitely stop in here the next time I am in the area so I can get an actual drink!
My friends and I are commonly here playing our favorite drinking game occupying the front table by the door. The bartenders are cool as long as you're not a demanding a-hole, or being so rowdy that you piss them off. When we started coming here, it was basically us plus local polish guys and a few metal guys who were friends with the bartenders and suddenly some younger people are becoming regulars here. The pitchers of beer are cheap and you shouldn't even attempt to order anything else. especially wine because you'll end up with a college-sized headache after drinking franzia all evening.
Review Source:The Palace Cafe, is for better or worse, one of my favorite bars in Brooklyn. As soon as you walk into this dank, musty, oddly lit place you'll feel at home. There's no pretension, nothing fancy, just tons of alcohol and all of it is cheap. Pitchers of Budweiser are only $8 and you can have food delivered to the bar. And, if you do have food delivered the bartenders will even give you paper plates and napkins.
An interesting mix of hipsters, locals, and whoever else might show up, along with one of the most serious heavy metal jukeboxes I've ever seen (think Venom, Immortal, 80s Metallica, Immolation and the like).
This place rules.
I didn't even know what the name of this bar was for a very long time, because we called it either "the metal bar" or "Moe's Tavern."
Either way, we always have a blast. It's cheap, and the bartenders help you get the job done. If you're looking for a place with microbrews and wine poured from bottles, go elsewhere. Here, it's all about strong mixed drinks, standard everyday beer, and box wine.
For all the times I've been there, I still have yet to see anyone occupying that back room. Sometimes I feel as if it's going to light up and magically become occupied with drunken ghosts, a la The Shining.
Seldom does one wander East down Nassau (Nassawr) as Dan the Irish bartender calls it, unless they call Greenpernt Heights their home, But, I recommend following the old Trolley line (it didn't cost nuttin, we just jumpin on and jumpoff, like in San Fransisco, you shoulda saw it in September 1953- they had people hanging off da ruuf) to the Palace bar. A bar where the 80 + historian behind the bar recalls times where the Cork company still made corks, the penny bridge ushered cars over the (always polluted sine 1913) Newtown creek prior to the (kos koos Ko) does now, and when the slaughter house stood off Meeker.
His soliloquies passed the lazy afternoon as the hazy August light shone pastel through the few faded colored panes in this Mahogany masterpiece. This is the guy who came to talk to you in 2nd grade about how times used to be- but back then, no one paid any attention- now, we let him speak and when we encountered an acute silence, interjections were taken in stride and were answered with a smile and am occasionally free Budweiser.
No clue why this place is called Palace Cafe, I know it as Goodies and the first bar I fell in love with upon my arrival to New York(actually I came here kind of on a first date, amazing). Johnny and Danny are awesome(and personal friends) and pour with a heeeaavvvy hand. Buy-backs are a custom thing here, not that it matters because you can't beat the prices. Best bar for hanging out, cheap drinks and LATE nights...and a badass collection of Metal tunes.
Review Source:My favorite watering hole above all!
Johnny and Jerry and the greatest bartenders in town. Â And if you like metal, they like you. Â They are big Family Guy and Sons of Anarchy fans. Â I love it here.
drinks are cheap, customers are (were) real people, and please don't go in the back room.
Also, the pay phone rings a lot. Â The pay phone.
what can i say about this place but F*cking Shredsville. Â go here to drink beer. $1.50 Bud drafts. you don't really need to say much more to get me anywhere. It has a wicked atmosphere, super dudes behind the bar, and it is nearly as cheap as drinking in your living room.
currently my favorite bar ever.
Just there last night, and this is quickly becoming my spot! Yes, there are better bars out there (with more to do, pool tables, jenga etc) but none that are right by my house AND HAVE $1.50 BEERS! Yes* ***$1.50**** for BEER! Also just in case you didn't know....THE BEER IS $1.50!!!! The bartender also does buybacks, just amazing. If you're looking to get a few friends together and go drinking on a budget this is the place to go. Its relaxed and chill. I don't feel like I have to put on my best dress to come here unlike a lot of other bars that are within walking distance, and every time I've been there its never been crowded, its like my friends and I had the place to ourselves. Â For some reason this place kind of reminds me of cheers. :) So if you only have $10 in your hands and a few friends that you need catching up with......you wanna go where everyone knows your name :)
Review Source:The Palace is what it is and it's for real. Â Johnny and Danny are good guys. Â The regulars are all plenty nice. Â It's cheap and fun. Â I've been there many many many nights way too late. Â Thank god I lived only 3 doors down.
Best juke box and if you've got something good they'll add it. Â Haven't been there in a little while, but I'll be happy to go back.
Prices are sometimes discretionary but always a good deal.
I love any local dive bar, so I'm a bit partial to this kind of thing. As everyone said below in a few words -- cheap, unpretentious, metal, awesome...Moved into the hood a couple yrs ago and this place is like home now. Johnny's a remarkable human being and knows how to treat you right if you're looking for some good drinks at fair prices (esp in "hip neighborhoods") Wouldn't recommend it for a quiet date vibe or formal business rendezvous...but  it's perfect for some 80's metal and cheap whisky shenanigans
Review Source:One time after a long night of cheap pitchers and Maiden on the jukebox I accidentally left my purse at Palace Cafe. I arrived home in a panic and called them at 4am - they answered the phone "We got it right here, sweetie" and they held it safely for me until my return the following day.
Also, if you want to order a pizza from someplace local they can suggest a great place who's number is scrawled on the wall to the right of the pay phone. Seriously. love this place.
this place is awesome. yes, it's true, prices are quite interpretive here. i think i might have gotten a little discount because i drink my Beam neat ("you want some water with that?" "nah, it's good like this." "YEAH it is!") johnny is quite a guy. he had us all won over within about 15 minutes. why? because he keeps it real and he's hilarious.
now, the last thing i would want to happen to this place would be to have it overrun, so i don't even know if i should comment on the negative anecdotal evidence about the guy being a crazy fuck. maybe i should just agree. yes, he's a crazy fuck! he doesn't want you in that other room! and if he doesn't approve of your behavior he might freak on you! aaagghhh!
i also don't really know if i should relate how incredibly homey and real this place feels, how cheap a thrill you can get there, how johnny's family has owned this place for almost 60 years, and how it's maybe the least pretentious bar with the most interesting bartender i've ever been to in new york. oops, i said it anyway.
it was here that i had a pilsner the size of a totem pole.
a man resembling meatloaf, but with a long captain hook wig, lurked about behind the bar nodding his head to some metal. i don't mean to say he looked like a loaf of meat with a wig.. i was referencing meatloaf the rock star.. (i didn't want to leave anyone with a strange image)
and to that post below me- if a burly, metal loving bartender smashed a wine glass against a wall in a bar.. i would never stop laughing and i would never stop ordering big beers. i would love to have seen that.
this is like one of those uncool bars that's so uncool that it's cool... only this one really isn't cool. which is why i liked it.
The second star is because I really want to like this place. It reminds me of Milwaukee, which is home to some of the best bars on earth. But jeez. It's weird. I was also at the New Years party mentioned by another reviewer, and I'd like to add that the party was busted up (in addition to her friend's glass) due to a fist fight the bartender got into with another guest. I'm not sure if the other dude was an invited guest or an interloper, but the whole thing was crazy unnecessary. Soon before midnite they stopped serving us because they "ran out of cups" and claimed that they could not serve drinks in real glasses (even though it was obvious they had at the start of the evening). It does seem ridiculous that they didn't have staff to watch the door, but everyone had wristbands for the booze, so what was the problem with mixing the crowds? Regardless, my first time there was on a much quieter late night on a Saturday, and even then we were totally vibed out. There was apparently an invisible line between the regulars and the hipsters that we mistakenly crossed. But since I live two blocks away and am too old to be a hipster, I considered myself immune. Wrong. When my friend asked for a scotch and soda she was told "sorry we don't do mixes here." What the hell does that mean? When she replied, mystified, "Uh, just a soda then," she was poured a flat Pepsi out of a 2-liter bottle and charged $2 for it. I think the old guy sitting next to me tried to play footsie, and another dude glared at us as if we had just pissed on his turf. Message received, I'm not welcome. But that sucks! The place itself is awesome, the metal is rad, and there's no reason why this bar should be stressful. I'm a nice person! I can hang! I only drink beer and am low maintenance! If the owners want to keep the crowd limited to old men and heshers, they should make it a private social club then, and quit their hatin'.
Review Source:Just down the street from my friends Dan and Roxie's Greenpoint digs, this place is frickin awesome. I've only been in a few times while visiting, and every time there was free food set up in a corner and an only-in-new-york mix of customers. Their prices (and the music selection) are from a bygone era before every neighborhood in Brooklyn was overrun by hipsters.
If I could get my friends to go here instead of to tourist trap bars in the Village or LES, they'd probably understand why I miss NYC.
We're at this bar at least once a week (some of us only take once a week off) and can't get enough but we call it Goody's/Goddman's. Music awesome. Crowd awesome. Buy-backs awesome b/c Jerry and John are awesome. I'm much more awesome now for having been there. Stays open til you're done drinking and doesn't really matter if you don't want to stop. Awesome.
Review Source:Everybody calls this place the Heavy Metal Bar, so I thought that was it's actual name until recently when someone was describing the Palace Café as, "The weird medieval looking place with the big horseshoe bar that only plays metal and sells beers for like $1.50"  Caught off guard and a little saddened, I was only able to respond with, "Oh...so you mean the Heavy Metal Bar isn't it's real name?"  It was kinda one of those tough, earth shattering revelations, like finding out there is no Tooth Fairy or that your dad is gay.  I came to realize though that the Heavy Metal Bar by any other name is still the Heavy Metal Bar, and that I should love it for what it is, not what I'd like it to be.  The drinks are still dirt cheap, Judas Priest still blasts from the jukebox, and the hipsters and the heshers are still slowly becoming one and the same.
Review Source:Danny the bartender is a ROCK GOD. Sure, he may get your drink order wrong, but the man is clever, kind and absolutely kickass. Imagine a gregarious Jimmy Page with a Brooklyn accent working at an Ohio bar in the early '90s.
$1.50 Budweiser pints
$5 mixed drinks with a HEAVY pour. I'm talking half a cocktail glass of booze.
Another bonus: Danny will show you historical photos of the bar if you put your drink away.
ANOTHER bonus: Playing Judas Priest or Dio will make you lots of friends here. HOLY DIVAH!
Ohh oh man. It's not the $1.50 Buds or the general filthiness of... everything.
It might be the fact that this is the *only* bar in Greenpoint where everyone seems to go -- hipsters, old Polish guys, yuppies, O.G. artist types, guys in army uniforms... there's nothing like it. The man tending bar is crazy. Nothing costs any money. Nobody is hostile, somehow. Zeppelin is playing pretty much 24 hours a day, you can hear it from Queens. Aw yeah.
This is my corner bar and is regularly called the Heavy Metal Bar by Williamsburg-area hipsters.
They do have a great jukebox. They're also a neighborhood fixture, a holdover from when the Irish outnumbered the Polish, and still run by family: Bill and his sons John and Danny.
Best known for their jukebox and cheap beer -- $1.50 glasses of Budweiser and an aggressive buyback schedule -- the bar has also branched out into music shows, occasionally scheduling bands in the back room.
The back room used to be a restaurant -- hence the Cafe part of the name of this otherwise un-signed location -- and when John used to drive into the city to buy fresh fish, the seafood dishes were high quality.
Now, it's also rented out as a function hall, and you can every so often see groups of well-dressed people standing outside smoking while others inside celebrate a wedding or recognize a wake.
But, as my friend Jason said last Monday night, it's not a good bar to have a serious, in-depth conversation in. For that, you might need to go elsewhere.
That said, the cute girl sits on the end on Wednesday nights!
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