And the search continues for the best bars in Queens….

To recap: Our intrepid guide Roger (Roger of Queens) shepherded us around the borough recently as we researched the best bars in Queens for my upcoming book Great Good Places of New York: 50 Favorite Joints of the Five Boroughs to be published by Rizzoli in 2017.

And let me expand on the phrase “best bars.” By that I simply mean neighborhood favorites, like the kinds you might find in a reader’s choice top ten in a local paper. Okay, keep your pants on. It’s subjective; what else could it be?

Best Bars in Queens: Woodside Dept.

From The Dog & Duck pub in Sunnyside we cabbed it over to the venerable Station Café in Woodside. Now, the Station Café is one of those old-timey dives that some people just LOVE. They LOVE them. The place has been there forever, it’s rough around the edges, it’s cheap, it smells a little like whiz (or more accurately a bathroomy/cleansery smell), and people just love these goddam places. I get it, too, whiz-smell and all. These places are freaking gems. They’re solid, they’re old, they’re historical, and the Station is one of them. It’s a keeper.

While I was there I had—what else—a shot and a beer. Jack Daniels and a Heineken. Heineken is what everybody at the bar was drinking, so, you know: when in Rome. I do that a lot at bars, ones I’ve never been to before. I look and see what the regulars are drinking, and follow their lead. Not a bad move. Avoids that crappy “record scratching abruptly to a stop” screech when you walk into a place you’ve never been before. “What can I getcha?” the bartender says. I look down the bar at all the hunchy barflies/regulars. “A [Bud Light/Coors Lite/Miller High Life or, in this case a] Heineken, please!” It’s a good move. Would you order a goddam corpse reviver #2 at a place like this? No. What are you, a buffoon? No. You follow the lead of the locals. Maybe later you get your weirdo drink. First, you have a shot and a beer.

So anyway, we stay at the Station for a couple rounds. I talk to the owner, Edel, who tells me that the place has been in operation for over 80 years. 80 years! FDR was in his first term when that place opened! And it’s right by the Long Island Railroad station (hence the name), so it’s always had a good commuter crowd, being as it is at a crossroads of sorts. I love places like that. Any bar at a crossroads, of any kind, gets bonus points in my book.

Whizzy smell aside, I loved the joint, I loved Adel, and I’d go back. It’s a great good place, beloved by the neighborhood for sure. The Station Cafe: one of the best bars in Queens I’ve yet seen.

Best Bars in Queens: On to Astoria

After the dank delights of the Station, we hopped in another cab (Queens is huge, Roger was ambitious, and fuck the MTA on a weekend, man) and headed to Astoria, named after America’s first millionaire, John Jacob Astor, who never set foot there. True story.

But we set foot at Cronin & Phelan’s with all alacrity and vigor. It’s a bar. A good bar. An old bar. An Irish pub, the kind you find in Queens, for men. Men that like to drink beer and eat beef. And going there makes you want to write about it like Hemingway. The beer was cold. The owner was warm. And it was good.

Okay, Cronin & Phelan’s is a clean, well-lighted place with a bar on your right and a dining area on your left right there on a busy section of Broadway near 4oth Street. It’s not as manful and manly as Hemingway (maybe it once was), but it’s still kind of sports bar-y and definitely would be a great place to watch a game with your boys. But it’s also pretty family friendly, with the dining side and all. I dug it. Sat at the end of the bar and Roger of Queens introduced us to Mike Peacock (like the bird, I crap thee not), the owner. Mike was a delight—a real gent—and told me the bar’s been there since 1902. Over a hundred years. Teddy Roosevelt was brand new when this joint opened! I love the history in NYC, even if places will vanish before your very eyes and break your heart a little. Hey, billionaires need their 4-bath condos, man. Don’t get too attached to anything in New York. Anything.

In Search of the Best Bars in Queens: Long Island City, Ahoy

From Astoria we cabbed it over to Long Island City for a bite and a bev at The Creek and the Cave. I’d heard about that place. A comedy geek friend of mine often performs there and I’ve meant to check it out, but I’m never awake and in Queens at like 11 pm on a Sunday, so…. But it’s a neat place. I wouldn’t call it a great good, but it’s a vital joint with a sweet backyard, a peach of a theater/performance space with shows all the time, and pinball. PINBALL, for chrissakes! Pretty good spot, but I’m not sold on it as a “neighborhood favorite.” It’s a venue.

From there we hoofed it over to Dutch Kills, a place everybody from Queens raves about. I’d been there before. It’s good, yes, but not quite my kind of place. Too big, no windows. It’s not a hangout so much as an event kind of place, where you’d go as a treat or for a party or something. Maybe it’s the lack of windows. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but feels a bit too clubby to be a great good place.

Deep in our second drink Roger of Queens ditched us. Yep, the old Irish Goodbye (fitting in Queens), disappearing like a ghost into the mists of a Long Island City night.