The Quiet Man

I had a really pleasant experience here.   I was with my friend going to pick up her boyfriend from work, and we both had to pee terribly.   We saw this bar near where her boyfriend worked, so said we would meet him there.  Apparently, everyone he works with tends to hang out there, so it's very much a blue-collar bar.   They have a pool table and a jukebox and a really nice bathroom, and $15 gets you a bucket of four Coronas.  They bartender was completely adorable in an MMA-fighter kinda way, and totally sweet and smart.  My friend and her bf were talking to all his coworkers and I kind of felt a little lonely, but the bartender bought me a few rounds and I ended up talking to him the whole afternoon and he was awesome.   I had never been to this section of Ozone Park before (to be honest, I had no idea where the hell I was), but I assume that they probably don't get a lot of foot traffic.  Nonetheless, they offer karaoke on Saturday nights, and they have a little backyard with a picnic table and a grill where people can smoke.   Also lots of TVs for games and whatnot....I loved that the bartender had it tuned into Pawn Stars for me that afternoon. :)

This is a bar that made me notice something kind of awesome.

If you are way out there, like this place, where really only regulars go, and it seems like busy equals about 20 patrons, and there's discoloration on the walls, and just a rough smell of it, you think, oh the place must be totally wonky in terms of it's bathroom right?

Wrong. This place had a really clean bathroom. I had the shadow and I felt no worries doing duties in there. It's because it's only regulars, and they don't want to mess up the bathroom of their favorite place. It's a wonderful thing.

Barcelona, who was the bartender, was very sweet and had snazzy French manicure and dressed about a decade younger. The bar was lit well enough so you could see people, but not well enough that you felt warm.

The real reason, as my friends Josh and Jess (who live in the neighborhood) to go is, DJ Mike hosts karaoke fun times every Saturday night. You don't even understand how awesome this karaoke is. "Spider" Jones took us through Baby Got Back, every word without looking at the lyrics screen, and then pronounced that he was showing everyone he could rap even though he was a middle aged white dude with long hair. He had a Jets colored Jeter jersey and a backward cap that was just the stuff of legend.

Then there's Virginia, and she took us through the sweetest rendition of Baby Come Back. Lots of babies here. DJ Mike looked like he liked life at some points, then maybe hated it at others. It was just such an interesting karaoke session, because it wasn't a bunch of young people doing it for kitsch, it was neighborhood blue collar people absolutely getting down with some serious power ballads. And some of it was horribly bad.

If you ever find yourself so out of the way, you're going to have to try it. You can't miss this place on the busy strip; it's got a white exterior and interior, and the inside once had dreams.