Family-friendly bars and taverns were common in the world of my childhood.
Not that my parents took us to get-your-teeth-knocked-out redneck bars and other dens of iniquity, but once a month or so we went out to eat with the grownups, and my dad had a rule about going out for dinner: if they don’t serve beer, we’re not eating here. No Chuck E. Cheese’s, no McDonald’s, no crappy Christian restaurants or any of that noise. We went to grownup places. Not bars, per se, but taverns: restaurants with a strong bar presence. The adults got beer and wine, the kids got shuffle-bowl and video games, and everyone got some social time along with their meatloaf and baskets of chicken. (Remember those red plastic baskets, inevitably lined with wax paper? Those were the days. I know they’re still around, but it’ll never be like the red baskets of chicken at Aaron’s on Whitehall Road in Muskegon, Mich….)
Anyway, back to family-friendly bars. I love ’em. They are (by my definition of family-friendly bars) healthy, wholesome, accessible places for people of all ages to socialize and have a good time. They’re inclusive and jolly and gently rowdy in the great tradition of the German beer garden, where Mom and Dad and the kids and the neighbors and Grandma and Grandpa and the dogs all converged on Sunday afternoon to hang out, have some laughs and bratwurst and pretzels, all washed down with cold, low-ABV lager. No stigma attached, no bad behavior. You were there on the sabbath with the people you loved to recreate and enjoy fresh air and hearty food—outside, surrounded by trees and breeze and oom-pah music! Not in some dank saloon, avoiding your family like an asshole while getting shit-hammered and punching it out with that jerk O’Banyan over there. NO. The German beer gardens were for the whole family, and when Wifey looked at the sun and decided it was about time to go, she put away her needlepoint or whatever, stood up, and that was that. Everyone finished their beer and they all went home.
Read more about the teriffic biergarten tradition in Ray Oldenburg’s classic book The Great Good Place, where he explains the wonderful concept of what the Germans called Gemütlichkeit, a feeling of comfort, coziness and good cheer that you find in a setting of friends, family, music and good beer. Like, say, a family-friendly tavern! And below you’ll find a few suggestions for just such wonderful places, featured in my book Bars, Taverns, and Dives New Yorkers Love. Order yours here. Want a signed one? Contact me via my website. Cheers! (Knock one back with the kids for me.)
ATLANTIC CHIPSHOP (Brooklyn Heights) A charming, friendly neighborhood pub with strong female (read: mom-power) bartenders ruling the roost, a dining room in back, an excellent kid’s menu, TVs everywhere and a rowdy-but-cool soccer crowd. (They route for Arsenal.) Owner Chris Sell says “I wanted to open a place where a father could take his son to watch the game.” He did. Mission accomplished. See you there for World Cup action.
BERG’N (Crown Heights, Brooklyn) Huge, sprawling, loud, wide-open, taking-all-comers beerhall/gastronomical extravaganza. It’s kind of like an indoor version of Brooklyn’s wildly popular weekend foodfest Smorgasburg. Families galore, room to roam, pinball machines, game nights, kids friendly to the max, with stroller-festooned bike racks out front to prove it.
BOHEMIAN HALL AND BEER GARDEN (Astoria, Queens) Proper European-style beer garden with huge trees, fresh air, great food, live music, a fantastic menu, six big TV screens around the perimeter, and a crowd ranging from babies to great-grandparents… till 9 pm when the under-21 curfew kicks in. But all day long it’s kid heaven.
THE BRONX BEER HALL (Belmont, Bronx) Located right smack dab in the middle of the crazy-fun Arthur Avenue Retail Market in what up there they call “New York’s real Little Italy,” this lively spot features a little bar and a bunch of long wooden tables, where Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa can enjoy fresh, tasty local beers and Italian wines, and treat the kids to any food to be found from any venue at the market. Big Italian subs to pizza to chicken parm to gelato, they’ve got you covered.
HARLEM TAVERN (Manhattan) Wonderful spot for outdoor brunch on the weekend, with umbrella’d tables, loads of families, a couple screens to keep an eye on the games (and plenty more INdoors, if the kids don’t mind the huge crowd and want to watch a little of the sportsball), live music, loads of young people, and on Sunday a strong after-church family crowd tying on the feedbag.
J.G. MELON (Upper East Side, Manhattan) Boisterous, joyfully noisy, sea-of-humanity burger mecca in one of the great Manhattan neighborhoods. As good for dinner as it is from brunch, with those legendary hamburgers, waffly fries, a marvelously stocked CD jukebox, and wacky melon-centric art covering every wall. All-in-all, a good place to bring loud little people without fear of reprisal, and feed them what they love.
KILLMEYER’S OLD BAVARIA INN (Charleston, Staten Island) Another lovely New York beer garden, with an equally lovely (and spacious) restaurant to boot. Beer gardens were traditionally family-friendly bars (more or less) to bring the whole brood, and Killmeyer’s carries on that tradition perfectly. Bonus: on Sunday afternoons, the house oom-pah band, the Happy Tones, oomp it up. And who loves oom-pah bands more than kids? I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure kids dig on the oom-pah.
LEE’S TAVERN (Dongan Hills, Staten Island) Ahhh, this place! I love this place. The perfect neighborhood family-friendly local tavern. Reminds me of the Bear Lake Tavern where my folks used to take me. A fine mix of diners in all three rooms, game-watchers at the small bar up front, old folks, young folks, and almost everyone seems to know each other. AND no swearing, as owner Diego Palemine pointed out to me. “We don’t allow cursing. We have families here.” Nuff sed.
So this summer, be cool and take the kids to some family-friendly bars. It’ll expand their little horizons, demystify and de-stigmafy the grown-up ritual of tippling, and be a big ol’ red basketful of jolly-good, quality family-funtime… with suds!