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103rd St (1)
"This bar is what you need after pre-gaming. My friends and I went here to finish up the night and LOVED it! Shots, beer, yelling, music…" read more »
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Everything I wanted on a rainy Saturday:
$3 Hoegarden
Crosby Young Stills and Nash
A reading-conducive vibe
It's a small bar with some good beers. I don't live in this area and I probably won't come back... but IF I did live here, this would probably be a place I'd go to drink after work.
I was here for Craft Beer Week, and got to taste the wheat beer and maple ale. The maple ale was pretty good - it had a smooth syrupy finish (maple, duh). We were at a table and the waitress was kind of a you-know-what and completely ignored us. However, a guy that seemed to be a manager of sorts came up and asked if we were still waiting for our beers. When I told him we were still waiting to order, he jumped and quickly got our beers, which was cool. Then he mentioned another beer he thought I might be interested in and said he'd give us a taste of it. He walked away. And never got us our beer tastes. Oh well.
Maybe I was just in a good mood that night because I think it's still a decent place to have a few drinks. I also appreciate the glass of blow-pops they offer at the bar.
If you live in New York, you have done some serious people watching/judging in your life. My trip to 106 was the scene for one of the most hilarious people watching and subsequent judgings that I have had in a New York bar. Let's just say that if you have underwear that say "CLASS" in big letters across your ass, you should purchase jeans that are high enough in the back that they cover said undergarments when seated. And if you need to adjust yourself so that your "CLASS" is no longer broadcasted, you should pull your jeans up as opposed to pulling your underwear down. Crack kills. :)
That said, Amsterdam 106 seemed to be a perfectly nice bar/restaurant and is always busy when I walk by. They have a respectable beer selection that rotates weekly and a decent menu. To be honest, I don't remember what I had to eat, besides the fact that it was a burger and it was tasty. The best part about this place is the growlers: for a reasonable price you can have a half gallon of the beer of your choice to bring home with you!! can it get better than that? Nope!
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Update 8/23
We went here again for lunch and beer. The food is still yummy, the beer selection is still impressive, but the service is pretty lousy.
This is a chill place to grab lunch or a drink with friends -- the decor is classy (tin ceiling, brick walls, vintage mirrors) and less fratty than their neighbor, The Village Pourhouse, and less cramped than Sip.
Lunch special for $8 is good -- any burger or sandwich plus either fries, a salad or soup. I got a grilled salmon sandwich with wasabi mayo - reg. price on the menu is $12, so it was a bargain. Hefty piece of salmon, too.
Also, they have a deal on Tuesdays where you get mussels, fries and a Belgian beer for $12. I'll definitely be back to check that out. The bartender also made a fresh pot of coffee for me even though I was the only person drinking it in the bar.
They have free wifi and a ton of outlets, too. To sum it up: me likey.
Nice place to get together with good friends. There's even a hotdog on the menu for $3. The beer list is great! Wine, not so much. They don't always have everything that is listed.
Only one word is necessary here:
GROWLERS!!!
For those unversed in what is best about beer brewing, let me educate you. Imagine a half gallon glass container that you bring to your friendly neighborhood bar or brewery (in my case, Amsterdam 106) that is then filled with one of many brews on a list. Air sealed and sitting in your fridge until you decide to partake.
I can't comment on anything else since we literally walked in and walked out, but I was happy with the results. The bartender seemed a little annoyed for really no reason, but I'm okay considering the growler itself is $5 (one-time fee since you bring your growler back) and to fill it up with any of their decent ales is $13. I also noticed that if you're into Bud Light, it's a grand total of $9. Some of the more expensive ones ran you $22. Not bad for a half gallon, which is roughly 4-5 pints. I'll definitely be back and maybe I'll actually sit down in here!
Wonderful beer selection, fantastic service, and good bar food. This is my go-to bar in Morningside Heights and has been since it opened. Just like its parent Dive Bar it has a great rotating beer menu and a friendly group of staff and patrons, but seating is usually much easier to find than at the 96th street location.
I really like this place. Not all the time, mind you, because some days it's just so crowded that you can't even get close to the bar to order. But on a Wednesday night the crowd is under control and you can even get a seat if you stay away from the dinner rush.
The kitchen is surprisingly good. I've ordered mostly sandwiches, but the guy next to me the last time in there had something called shastuka (sp?) that looked amazing. I'm getting that next time. I don't know who Mary Ryan is, but the sandwich named after her is a thick slab of perfectly cooked (rare for me) tuna on grainy bread with lettuce, tomato, avocado, wasabi mayo, etc. The po boy is really tasty as well, and the veggie burger is huge and tastes like home made.
They have a lot of brews available, but the house beer that's made by a local brewery is really good and incredibly cheap.
And the staff is super friendly. It's a great place to unwind after a long day.
Just the best place in the world.
A bar with the best happy hour ($3 pints of interesting and obscure and high-alcohol brews) and shockingly delectable food (well, the shock is starting to wear off because now I just expect the best from them). Great bartenders and, for most of the day, the best vibe. Wi-fi, televisions, jukebox with homemade mixes.
It's what I've always wanted in a cafe, just in a bar, so it's mad better.
no muppets here.
by far the best bar in the area, if not the entire uws.
i cannot sing highly enough…
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GREAT (and lengthy) beer selection and generous and inexpensive bar food. What else can you ask for? I can't remember anything about the music. I remember about 6-7 tables that comfortably seat 6 lining one wall and the bar at the other. A nice place to go with friends. Quite cheap and fun.
I really like Amsterdam 106. In its previous life, it was a dive bar that looked sketchy to even a bar rat like myself.
But I like the new and improved 106 a lot. The selection of beer is outstanding - very varied with brands and styles I've never heard of yet alone tasted (I had a stout with hints of Mayan chocolate my last time there).
Service is prompt and friendly - sometimes they give out free blow pops or starburst. Can't go wrong there. In terms of food, I've had the burger, which was nothing special but definitely good enough.
We retreated here in search of real alcohol after suffering through fake, watery caipirinhas at Blockheads down the street. My friend said it was a great bar, and you know, I wasn't disappointed! We were here on a Monday night and there were enough peeps in the joint to make it festive but it wasn't obnoxiously crowded. Just a chill neighborhood scene. The decor is beautiful -- lots of wood, ornate ceiling, lights not too dark/not too light -- and the staff are polite and quick with the service. The bathrooms are nice, clean and private. And I was, thankfully, able to get a few glasses of Johnny Walker Black on ice and just hang out.
The night took a turn towards hilarity when we noticed they had a jukebox and we started putting in our songs & singing along. They have a lot of everything! It was cool to be able to hear the Smiths, Cake, Eric Clapton, Lily Allen, Tears for Fears, Prince and Simon & Garfunkel all in the same place! Plus they had bar staff put together their own favorites playlists alongside the full albums, and I love it when places do that. It gives them a little bit more character. We stayed so long we ended up ordering Dinner Part 2 (aka drunk eats). The cheese sticks we ordered were decent but they took a little too long to get to the table . . . or did it just seem that way? ;)
Overall I was quite happy -- this is an excellent Upper West Side drinking spot that's not too young or too old. I'll be back!
This place has a great atmosphere and an awesome 15' tin ceiling that you have to see. The lunch special is any sandwich or burger and fries for 8 bucks. The service is slow and not great though.
thought this was a totally decent place. definitely worth going back to.
beer was good.
food:
*hummus appetizer - totally solid, large portion of hummus
*mac and cheese (plain, not the lobster or bacon one) - fine, not amazing, but better than lots of other restaurant mac and cheese dishes. no breadcrumbs.
*fries - thin steak fries, if that makes sense.
*turkey club - very enjoyable amazing? no. but perfectly fine.
*cheeseburger - waiter didn't ask how to cook it, burger came out nicely medium. tasted good. best burger ever? no. worth ordering again? sure.
*veggie sandwich (mozzarella/tomato) - didn't try it but it looked alright and the review seemed to put it at about a 7.5 or so.
will have to head back and try both the cheese plate and the tuesday $12 mussles/fries/beer.
definitely a bar in which the food shouldn't be feared.
Yay. This place is chill, a decent beer list and seemingly unknown. It's just... relaxing...
I liked the ambiance and the view (hello there, grad school boys!), but felt like my waitress wasn't very attentive. Maybe because it was a Friday night and I was there with my girl friend, and the waitress prefers to flirt with boy customers. Who knows.
They were out of two of three beers I'd wanted to try, and the beer menu hadn't been updated to reflect that, so it took me forever to order.
Sadly, I'm used to paying $6+ for a crummy pint of Magic Hat in the city, so the prices sure don't make this bar special. I'll come back to gawk at college kids that I'm too old to date, so there's that.
some bars might tempt you to say,
"if heaven had a bar..."
amsterdam 106 provokes something more like,
"if heaven WERE a bar..."
So this bar just showed up on our radar recently but apparently has been open for about three months. It is owned by the "Dive Bar" people and thus has the gratis Blow Pops and Tootsie Pops.
The decor: Tin ceilings; fun mirrors; nice flat screen TVs; big windows out to the street; awesome jukebox that the owner has filled with mix CD's others have made. You too can bring one in.
The food: The food I've had is super yummy. I had the lobster mac n' cheese and it was really good with crunchy breadcrumb topping, MIke had the Dive Burger which was also yummy with sweet potato fries (my favorite). Our friends did a taste test between the organic burger and the regular burger and besides the $3 in price and the unflavored toxins consumed, there appeared to be no difference.
The drinks: Well-priced, full bar, lots of beers including Hoegaarden! We even got a free round
The bartenders, waiters, bouncer: Nice, helpful and didn't get mad at us when we screamed at the Red Sox game on TV. There were a lot of Red Sox fans, which was awesome and a nice find in NYC.
this place is as good as it gets! and the service is awesome!
I like this place, and not just because it's a block from my apartment. Excellent beer selection - I had a lager with some ginger on Friday, yum! I haven't tried the food yet - but it looks good!
I think it's a bit unfair to call Amsterdam 106 a 'dive', which makes it sound grimy and unpleasant. It's not--far from it. The staff are friendly, it's clean and tidy, the beer selection is top-notch, and it's in a great spot. Their happy hour is a great deal, and I'll be returning.
Good food and more than a dozen beers on tap. Clean, nice looking bar, with an awesome copper ceiling and an antique clock. We had no problem with the service.
This is my spot on the UWS. Great rotating beer selection, esp. w/r/t/ high alcohol content beers. really good food and they play great music from the jukebox. never too crowded but there is usually a pretty lively crowd. Also, the bartendresses are about as cute and cool as girls can be.
This has become the regular bar for me and my girls in Morningside Heights. So much so that the bouncer has stopped carding our baby faces. The first visit I had food, including a delicious cheese plate that I can't wait to order again. Subsequent visits were wine nights, which led to some disillusionment. The wine selection could use a face-lift. But then my girl informed me that the beer selection was better, and I was back in love. The changing selection has some great European choices, including one of my favs... Chocolate Stout! This is a great little neighborhood joint, the perfect chaser to a night of stress or final moments of fun in MSH. Plus the bartenders are sweeties:)
Great selection of draft beers. The ambiance is really warm and welcoming. The staff is very friendly They have 4 TV's for sporting events. This is my regular spot.
Last time I was in here (two weeks ago), good beer was back on the menu--and for the happy hour, too. Plus, the barkeep who's served me/friends a number of times there, Kate, is awesome. I have to restore a star. Definitely a good spot for happy hour, etc. Great bar. See my first review--I only leave the second one up as a warning that there's the potential for this place to be a disappointment.
I am still a fan of any bar in Manhattan with a 4-7 happy hour every day where pints are $3. But a… Read more »
As a long-time fans of Dive Bar (many birthdays, many wings) and Broadway Dive and Dive 75, we were planning the latest celebration at Dive Bar this past Sunday (Jets! Giants!) and Lee, the owner, suggested we try this newest spot instead (especially since getting a table at Dive Bar on a crowded Sunday is quite a challenge). He offered us up a reservation, an accomodation (did I mention wings?), and introduced us to the manager (Karin) who took great care.
We highly recommend this latest addition to the Dive Bar family (the girls were especially pleased by the new, clean bathrooms) -- a real hidden gem on upper UWS.
Best Mac and Cheese!
After Dinner Bash
Neighborhood: Long Island City
Happy Hour
Neighborhood: Midtown East
Neighborhood: Manhattan Valley
Category: Nightlife
Neighborhood: Upper West Side
Category: Dive Bars
Neighborhood: Manhattan Valley
Category: Dive Bars
Neighborhood: Manhattan Valley
Category: Bars
Neighborhood: Manhattan Valley
Category: Burgers
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