You’re sitting at the bar, the wet grey Red Hook winter slapping the window behind you and the perfect hot Irish coffee sitting in front of you. Follow it up with brunch and some easy chatter and you’re doing just fine. Follow that up with another Irish coffee and you’re even better. You’re in a truly great good place — Fort Defiance.

St. John Frizell moved to Brooklyn’s quiet Red Hook neighborhood in 2003. It was even more low-key back then, an out-of-the-way relic of Brooklyn’s shipping heyday, its lack of subway lines setting it apart from the rest of the city. There were a couple of good dive bars and the usual complement of bodegas and bagel joints serving up typically bitter New York coffee. Frizell loved Red Hook, but there was no place to get some of the staples that he—a copywriter at Bon Appétit—wanted, like a proper mixed drink, a nice glass of wine, a good cup of coffee. “There was nothing quite like Fort Defiance in the neighborhood back then. I waited for one to open then finally did it myself.”

He did that in 2009, and Fort Defiance—named after a Revolutionary War fort hastily constructed in Red Hook before the British invasion of Brooklyn—became a kind of community center where people see their neighbors, exchange news and find roommates or a new apartment, from breakfast to after-dinner cocktails. In the morning regulars roll in to get their coffees, tuck into biscuit egg sandwiches and read the day’s papers—The New York Times, the Post and the Daily News—on old fashioned, French-café style newspaper sticks. By 12:30 the lunch crowd rolls in—folks who work at home, local artists, tourists and employees of the neighborhood’s small, independent businesses. After 3:00 p.m. the place switches over to a mellow cocktail hour vibe as locals knock off work have a drink and deconstruct of their days. At 5:30 the dinner menu kicks in, then after that it’s nightcap time in Red Hook. Frizell says, “We’re always open, so you can always stop by.”

Jerry Seinfeld stopped by with Colin Quinn and Mario Joyner in a 2012 episode of his web series Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. They sat at table four, against the wall, and discussed the changes of New York in general and Red Hook in particular.

Red Hook is a tight community, and people love Frizell’s place so much that they “get very possessive of it. They think it’s their very own. They’re proud of it and they bring their friends here to show it off, which is fantastic.” In October 2012 Hurricane Sandy hit New York hard, with coastal, sea level Red Hook taking it on the chin. Fort Defiance was flooded and closed for months, but locals pitched in and helped clean up the mess, even buying “junk bond” gift certificates with half the proceeds going to the reopening effort, kind of like a low-tech Kickstarter. I get it. I’ve been a patron of the Fort for years, had my first “Great Good Places” art show there, and now work behind the bar a couple days a week. St. John knows what the place means to the neighborhood. “The fact that we’re still here after the hurricane Sandy means a lot, too. It means we’re defiant.”

Fort Defiance Fast Facts

Drink: (a visitor should have at least two drinks at a bar: one to settle in and one to really be there)

• Most Popular: Barbados Buck (a gingery rum refresher) in the summer, a Sazerac in the winter

• Not to be missed: The Irish Coffee, hailed by The New York Times as “the best in the known world,” thanks in part to the heating of the whiskey before it goes in the drink, the bold coffee taste (a double shot of fresh espresso) and the thick creme fraiche on top.

Notice: Culinary writer and bon vivant Charles H. Baker’s personal cocktail shaker and two glasses, in a special, lighted case mounted on the wall to the right of the bar. Owner St. John Frizell, a fan of the legendary author and world traveler, was given these treasures by Baker’s daughter. In fact, if you get a copy of Baker’s book The Gentleman’s Companion you can see the cocktail set in a picture at the beginning of the book, on a tray held for Mr. Baker by his then-young daughter.

Best Seat in the House: According to Frizell: “Got to be table 2, the four-top banquette in the back corner with the orange floral cover. That’s where all the photographers [from the press Fort Defiance has received over the years] like to shoot. Good northern light comes in through the back window and everyone looks beautiful there in the afternoon.” Me, I dig seat B12 at the bar, right by the wall, Baker’s shaker above my right shoulder.

Best Time to Visit: Fort Defiance is an “all-purpose” kind of place, as good in the morning for coffee, breakfast or brunch as it is late night for after-dinner cocktails. I’d recommend a daytime visit during the week, for breakfast or lunch, when there’s a good mix of locals and visitors. Another good option is Sunday evening, when St. John himself mans the bar. He’ll make you a great cocktail and tell you the history behind it, too.

I’m including a chapter about Fort Defiance in my upcoming book Great Good Places of New York: 50 Favorite Joints of the Five Boroughs, to be published by Rizzoli in 2018. You can buy signed prints of the artwork for this chapter (seen at the top) on my site. They’re available as 16″ by 20″ handmade silkscreen prints as well as 8″ by 10″ giclée prints, both perfect for a standard sized frame or using as very large coasters.