There are some places in New York that take you back to a long gone era. Many are contrived, designed in modern times, using modern processes and faux material to simulate a different time; others are the real thing. Old Town Bar is the real thing.
There are no flat screen panels above the bar, no servers walking around with digital equipment strapped to their hip for rapid payment and no extensive menu with food pre-prepared by restaurant food supplier Sysco, for quick service. The menu consists of delicious hand made hamburgers, french fries and little else.
Old Town Bar NYC was built in 1892 and has not changed much since then. Folks walk into the bar to eat, drink and converse the way their great, great, great, great, grandparents did back in the day.
Old Town Bar was originally named Viemeister, then it was changed to an equally German “Reichenecker Café.” During Prohibition, the bar was converted to a speak-easy named Craig’s “Restaurant.” One feature of the era was benches where a secret compartment opened for hiding illegal beverages. While prohibition came to an end in 1933, the benches remain to this day. Upon the ending of prohibition, the bar was named Old Town Bar and has remained so ever since.
The main bar is 55 feet of mahogany and marble, backed by a beveled glass mirror, surrounded by wood tables and booths and swivel top stools. The lighting is converted gas fixtures and the ceiling is the original tin, last painted white in 1952, but transformed into a mahogany brown through the years from tobacco smoke.
The most coveted fixtures of the bar are not in the bar, but in the men’s bathroom. Giant, oversized Hinsdale urinals grace the walls of the men’s retreat. These urinals were installed in 1910 and have been well maintained ever since. These urinals are so famous that the bar had a 100 year anniversary party in 2010 to celebrate their “continued service.”
We highly recommend Old Town Bar if you want to go to a place where you don’t have to be hip, you just need to be you.
Old Town Bar is located at 45 East 18th Street, (212) 529-6732.
