Sunny’s Bar in Red Hook Brooklyn hosts a three-artist show opening May 8, 2017

Sunny’s Bar is one of those great old-fashioned New York bars that make the city a richer place. It’s not just old, and it’s not just eccentric (though it scores high on both counts). It’s a place of great warmth and love, with a welcoming, be-yourself vibe that is harder to find in a bar than you might think.

Join us at Sunny’s at 6 p.m. on Monday, May 8, as Jill DeGroff, Nicole Desmond and I kick off a showing of our art in the back room, which will hang till June 20. We’ll have food and music and drinks on the house served up by me and Dale DeGroff, the bartender who revolutionized the cocktail world in the 1980s while in charge of the bar at the Rainbow Room in 30 Rockefeller Center.

Sunny’s Bar: The Current Situation

Sunny Balzano set the tone for the bar after taking over from his uncle John in the 1980s. Sunny was an aptly-named man with a radiant, solar-powered soul. He passed his personality on to the bar, then, last year, he passed on. His wife Tone (aptly named, too, for her love of music, though technically the Norwegian name is pronounced TOO-nah, like the fish) took over operations after Sunny died, and found a hoard of Balzano relatives wanting her to close Sunny’s Bar and sell the building asap. Given the astronomical prices being paid for New York real estate, can you blame them? Instead, she’s buying them out. The building will be hers and Sunny’s will remain if she comes up with $50,000 by July 1. To that end, 10% of the sale price of art sold during the show goes to the fund.

Join us on May 8, have some eats, enjoy a couple drinks and stick around for live music. Dale DeGroff plays at about 8 p.m. and more music to follow him. Buy some art and help the cause! And check out their online art auction here, too.