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1st Ave-14th St (L)
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This place is awesome!
They have cowboy boots hanging from the ceiling and lots of fun cowboy decorations all over the bar. There's a jukebox in the back with old school country music that allows for a pretty kick-ass mix to be created.
We were here on a Saturday afternoon and got to dominate Buckhunter and the jukebox!
We also did quite a few shots of The Red Stag Black Cherry Jim Beam, which I recommend.
I know it's cheap, and I know it's a classic dive bar, but EEK!
The cowboy hats, country music (I know, I was there, I should have known what I was getting myself into). I went to meet a friend who was meeting his alcoholic booty call, but that's another story for another time.
The bathroom was a dump, more-so than any dive I have ever been to. I need to reel it back though, because I know that this is the vibe they are going for. The bartenders were extremely friendly and quick on the refills, not to mention the hot bar-back with the afro (it's real we asked) and blue eyes. I took a shot of the bartender dancing on the bar, and had a few drinks, but I don't think I'll be back any time soon.
Has all of the trappings of a dive bar: it's a dump, full of interesting/sleazy characters, devoid of pretense. The only problem is that it's not inexpensive like a dive bar should be.
Service is AWFUL. I stood at the bar for well over 5 minutes waiting for the bartender to come over and ask for my order. The place was empty. On top of that, the bartender acted like I was really putting her out by daring to order a beer. I don't know why I even tipped her; she didn't deserve it.
Charging big bucks for shitty beer in a dive bar with bad service is inexcusable. Only in New York! I'd never go back.
I'm a little sad that the "all you can drink Bud Light" went up from $5 to $7, but hey, it's still a great deal.
I come here for the killer jukebox and stay for the laid back vibe and crazy characters who are crazy in an endearing way, not a creepy way. Fine line.
The bouncer discreetly informed me that I had toilet paper stuck to my shoe once so that was kind of a huge plus.
Doc's is all about rowdy, dirty fun for me.
This is the best DIVE BAR in NYC hands down! Cheap $3 Rolling Rock, great jukebox filled with a mixture of country music, oldies, and punk tunes, very friend bartenders, I never have to wait long for a beer there, and there's always interesting people to meet. The best time to go is on the weekends for the larger crowd. People normally don't start filling the joint until after 11pm, but that's pretty much the same for most bars in alphabet city. I'm there almost every weekend!
The question I was left asking myself after my night here, "was I holding the pole up or was the pole holding me up?", very curious.
This place is pure filthy fun. Cheap drinks a plenty, country on the jukebox, dancing on the bar and a pool table. Perfection.
All I can say is that I dont remember leaving and I woke up on a half eaten gyro, which is both extremely classy and a sure fire sign of a fun night!
This storied East Village institution is one of the few bars left in the area in which a homosexual can still get his ass beat. Pull up a chair and take a sip of HISTORY!
This is a dive. I used to go here pretty regularly with a buddy of mine. Not so much anymore. It's loud, the girls dance on the bar, there's a country juke box.
This place rocked for one reason - All You Can Drink Bud Light on a Tuesday night for $7! Definitely worth it!
This place is okay for some. A lot of people seemed to be having a hell of a time. Especially the guy smoking crack in the bathroom!
But if you're really missing home, and needing some honkytonk therapy, you'll probably end up worse off than you were before.
That same model I was talking about in my review of Anyway Cafe...? She first took me here.
I don't know what else to say besides, oh dear god! Sawdust on the floors, random "vagrants" stumbling in or nodding off at the bar, terrible bathrooms...and yet beautiful women instinctively flock here like the salmon of Capistrano.
Most of the time, I spend my time a couple blocks away at one of the better bars in the neighborhood. But on occasion, I'll screw up my courage and walk through those swinging doors.
Since this is going to be one of BTSH's new "go to" bars, I suppose I should chime in on it. So far, I haven't been impressed. I'll give it points for not being "ironic country" as it seems as authentic as you can get for being on Avenue A. But the drinks aren't especially cheap, creepy homeless guys wander in and out, and I'm guessing they've had problems in the past with serving underage folks, as they card damn near everybody.
I don't exactly long for the days of Welcome To The Johnsons, but at least there were couches, a decent jukebox and a close proximity to Tiny's Giant Sandwich Shop.
Boy howdy! I thought I knew me some rednecks down in Texas, but this here place takes the cake. Ping! (That was me spitting into my spittoon.) I had read about this place being one of the dirtiest bars in the East Village so you know I had to go. Dirty? Oh yes, me likey.
This place would make the best bar fight setting in a movie... or in real life. Remember the place in Pee Wee's Big Adventure where he did the Tequila dance on top of the bar? Well yeah, this place kind of makes me want to do that then run outside and knock over a row of hogs.
I met a group of girlfriends here that I knew would either hate this place or friggin' love it. I walked in first and was hit with the smell of... well I think it was pee. But that only made it better. I couldn't wait for the gals to show up. And when they did... they lurved it! We drank Jack Daniels just for the f*ck of it, and shimmied to the tunes of Hank on the jukebox. God bless 'em.
Come here on All-You-Can-Drink-Tuesdays when you pay $7 for all you can slam Bud Lites from 8pm to 11pm. Bud Lite sucks, but who cares at these prices? We're gettin' sloppy. Don't worry if you can't make it for Tuesday. Their happy hour Buy One Get One Free specials happen DAILY from 5-8pm. Oh and PBRs are always $2. Um, yeah. I can't wait to fill out the survey form and laugh wildly when I come to the Coat Check question. Do they have coat check? Bwahahahahaha! Ahem, no. No they don't.
Doc Holliday's stinks. And by "stinks," I mean it's the real deal! I love this East Village cowboy shithole.
There are old boots nailed to the ceiling, and I don't know if that's part of the reason behind the odor of it is is just from dirty old bar and barf that never really cleaned up. There are sometimes really authentic "Willie Nelson" types here, drinking away their sorrows.
Cheap PBR and the whole vibe in general is what has me loving this place.
A real dive bar with friendly staff and new restrooms......awesome.
This is an awesome dive bar. You can come on Tuesday nights and for $5 drink unlimited Bud Light from 8-11p. It just doesn't get much better than that. They also have a jukebox, Buck Hunter, and pool. The bathrooms are pretty nasty, but it comes with the territory.
The only slight downside was the bartender working the last Tuesday night I was there. Since everyone in the place is doing the unlimited Bud Light deal Tuesday nights, she's probably not getting tipped all that well, and as a result simply doesn't give a fuck. Even the people working there could barely get her attention in between her checking her BlackBerry and reading a book. But who cares. $5...in New York. You drink one beer, it's basically paid for itself.
The $2 cans of PBR are no more...the place is filled with frat-types, cheap swill and perfunctory service...big disappointment and a likely casualty of the gentrification of the East Village...
A large plastic cup (think frat party Solo cups) made me feel that my $7 was well spent. The bartender was nice, as were the random patrons at the bar. Fun atmosphere, video games, and decent music (was somewhat theme-y, but not terrible) mean I'll probably return next time I'm looking for a friendly dive bar in the neighborhood. However, the bathroom was gross - someone had thrown up all over it and in addition to having that pukey smell it wasn't quite cleaned up.
During a semester or two of college, I came here every Tuesday for the $5 all you can drink beer special. I have no idea if that's still going on.
I'm from Georgia--most of my NYU friends were not. They tended to be surprised when I would sing along to country songs even I didn't know I knew. Loud music, a young crowd, and a fun jukebox are the things I remember most.
I went to Doc's a few days ago with friends. We just happened upon it and I requested that they feed my nostalgic dreams. It was okay. Too loud, not crowded, and I felt too bad beginning to explain all the silly and fun time I'd had there to people who hadn't been with me. So oh well.
In 2001, I'd say go there for SURE. Now I can't say one way or the other, but I know it's worth checking out since it's so different from other bars in NYC. Country without being 100% gimmicky.
My friends and I used to come here often, back in the day when our livers could still stomach cheap booze.
And appropriately so, as Doc Holliday's is the king of cheap booze. $2 PBR cans (only matched by Mona's:)!
With the 2 for 1 happy hour every day, this means $1 dollar PBR cans. I don't think you can find alcohol any cheaper than this in the city.
I still have pictures of us, head down on the table, behind a tabletop covered in empty PBR cans.
Unfortunately, our livers can't really handle it anymore.
I'm not sure about the other drinks in this place, if they're also cheap compared to other bars, since we pretty much stuck with the dollar PBR.
I just celebrated my birthday at this awesome Alphabet City Dive. Buck hunter, the pool table and the jukebox filled with country music helped set the mood for a rowdy good time. There was something else that helped also... what was it again? Oh yeah... all that free flowing booze.
I really wanted to like this place just on the merit of it's filthiness and cheap pabst. But the truth is that the place sucks. The bartenders were HORRIBLE! I love when bartenders get drunk but these girls were wasted and they were providing the worst service to me and my friends ever. And i'm sorry...but if you're going to get up on the bar and dance shouldn't you have a body that people actually WANT to see??
But aside from all that, let me tell you about how I was KICKED OUT of this shit-hole!!!
I was about to escape at about 2 am and I decided to hit the bathroom one last time after my friends B-day party. I was standing in a nasty ass stall unfurling some toilet paper to blow my nose when I see a pair of eyes peering at me through a little slit in the wall...
I hear a voice saying "That's it buddy, not in my bar!" I was like, uhh...what? He came up to me and says, "No COKE in my bar pal, you're outta here!" I was wasted at that point and could barely comprehend what I was hearing. I'm not used to being angrily approached by large men in filthy bathrooms...
I said, "What?! You think...Me?!..What??" He says, "I saw you pouring the coke out into the toilet!" I said, "What the fuck! I was blowing my nose! And why the fuck would I be throwing out coke?!!" He says, "Whatever man, let's go!"
So I walk back out into the bar with this dickhead bar back following me to our table. He signs to the doorman and makes a "He's cut off" gesture over my head. I explain to my friends that i'm being kicked out for doing coke in the bathroom....!!! WTF!! If I wasn't on my way out of the place anyway I would have been seriously pissed. But at that point it was just funny. I don't think i've ever been so falsely accused of something in my life and given so little chance to defend myself. Before I knew it the doorman was looming over me and I shuffled past him into the cold, rainy night.
FUCK THIS BAR!!
So I think this is the first time in my life where girls (excuse me, women in mid 30s) were dancing on the bar and I did NOT want them to take their top off. This wins for the dingiest, trashiest and hole in the wall bar I've seen in many months. SCORE!
Natty Light Cans is the drink of choice for most of the patrons which I will say vary widely from the normal college kid to men well in their 50s. I don't know how, but it worked for the place. Great tunes on the jukebox. I respect anywhere who has $5 all you can drink Bud Light on Tuesday Night.
Bottom Line: Cheap booze with old bar flys who know how to have a good time. Lots of entertainment but more of a 1 or 2 drink bar instead of get plastered whole night type.
I was excited to go there because they supposibly play the type of music we like! Well...YUCK, this place is a dump! Had to wait 10 minutes for the only bathroom cause a guy and 2 girls decided to have a private party in there (an employee to boot)! My husband enjoyed the bouncing boobs of the barmaid hoping they'd fall out of her corset type top. 1 and run!
Logically speaking, Doc Holliday's should not exist. It's a redneck bar in the middle of a city with no rednecks (give or take the handful of old, grizzled "regulars" that seem to be a fixture here). And it's not just some gimmicky, ironic hipster thing either. The patrons here are 100 percent serious about their Big Buck Hunter and tall boys of Natty Light. The jukebox is jam-packed with honky-tonk classics, and don't be surprised to see a gaggle of drunk girls with daddy issues tearing it up on the bar. For those looking to leave their jaded New York baggage behind and raise their glasses (or cans) to a sing-a-long of "Friends In Low Places", look no further.
If you go at the right times, doc holliday's is full of fat chicks and old guys who WILL hit on your boyfriend if he lets it happen.
Pool + country juke == awesome.
Reason why I love Docs:
1) Nice and dirty.
2) $5 all you can drink buds on Tues from 8-11
3) Haggard, Bocephus, Willie, Cash, Chuck on the jukebox.
4) $5 all you can drink buds on Tues from 8-11
5) Proves Manhattan (a small portion) still has balls.
6) See 2&4
For that tattooed, graffiti, dive bar east village move.
This bar is a pretty fantastic place to go with your friends, to go meet people or to just get really fucking drunk. The age old adage that you get what you pay for certainly rings true here where beers are cheap and so are the other patrons.
Put on a t-shirt, some ripped jeans, dawn your awful barbed-wire tattoo and grab a PBR tall boy. If you wake up the next morning alive you will most likely be laying next to a chick that wasn't so fortunate.
My advice would be to shoot for an overdose of alcohol, the quick way. Hit the bar for shots of whiskey chased with PBR and you will be in for a good time. Extra bonuses are the Neil Diamond on the juke box and the big buck hunter video game which should facilitate you drinking yourself to death even quicker. Be sure to wink at the lovely lady bartenders who are very attentive and can probably kick your ass.
BUCK HUNTER.
a couple of my buddies called me up one night and told me we were going to doc holliday's to play buck hunter. i'm the one who remembers most of the night and it was great. our table was covered over in pbr cans and shot glasses and even the girl i came with had a good time.
other times i've gone, i've always had a great time. there are some wild characters at the bar, they have great drink specials on special days that are even lower in cost than their usual dirt-cheap prices and one night, after a potent mixture of various chemicals, i found myself passed out in the back room, waking up to the bartender putting my mobile in my pocket. it turned out that while i was still upright, i'd dropped the damn thing at the bar and she was making sure i didn't loose it, then let me go back to sleep.
you will meet some people that aren't anything like the ones you're currently friends with, and if you head home with one of them, make sure you're protected from diseases, knifes and her boyfriend--he's bigger, meaner and hairier than you are.
I want to start off by saying when I use to work at Sidewalk Bar just a little up the street and when all the strung-out junkie, dirty non-showering Tompkins Square living, east village muttering crazies would come in that we didn't want in our bar, I would just send them over to Doc's; because they'll take anyone as long as they can scrounge up a few bucks.
That being said, Doc's deserves to go into the dive bar Hall of Fame.
It's hard not to get wasted here it is so damn cheap.
Come with $10 and you're doing good...$20 and you'll be vomiting in the bathroom (which by the way...don't touch anything in there and use antiseptic cleaner on your way out).
Tip the bartender well and you will make a valuable ally. The bartenders love to get drunk with the patrons...actually with or without you they're getting drunk.
I've had a few well made Bloody Mary's in this joint. Not a bad way to pass the time during the day, maybe post brunch.
Man, my friend Nick loves this place. When he comes up to visit from Louisiana, I know I can always find him lurking in here. And for good reason too.
The jukebox is full of country music and rock. I know lots of people think they don't like country but you gotta love the old stuff, Willie, Waylon, Hank, Johnny Cash, Merle...much of this is the origins of rock and roll baby!
The only thing is, when you get home from Doc's shower first thing.
I've gotten in a lot of trouble in this bar.
This is the only bar I've actually almost got in a fight at. This dude was trying to pick me up via dissing the memory of Johnny Cash, in a fricken country bar, NOT TWO WEEKS AFTER HE HAD DIED!!!!!!!!!! Them's fightin' words!
Every time I go here, at least one of 3 things happens:
1. Someone (I'm pretty sure it's the cute bartender) convinces me to get up on the bar and dance.
2. I fall off of something (including the bar, on the occasions where #1 has occurred).
3. I remember very little of any of this the next day and go around asking people whether I humiliated myself by falling off the bar yet again.
Other fun facts:
The bartender is incredibly cute, and has often given me free shots. No idea whether this is a general thing for everyone (or maybe all cocky young lesbians she wants to watch fall off the bar; this is the same bartender that is so often involved in that particular permutation of my drunken evenings at Doc's), or maybe she just likes me. Free Wild Turkey has been known to happen.
They have lots of good country music on the jukebox, both serious high quality and embarrassing stuff you can play and then loudly blame on your friends after a few rounds (I recommend anything from Garth Brooks' Double Live album).
Some of my tamer friends are actually afraid of this place.
Their Monday "ladies night" is also known as lesbian central, or at least it used to be when I was in college.
I'm not even sure why I'm giving this three stars. I should be giving it one and say that its actually one and a half. But its an experience I'll say that. You just feel dirty in this bar.
The crowd is awful. Old farts and older suits coupled with rowdy dive-bar-loving women. Fine.
Let me tell you about this bartender though this one time.
She pissed in the bar sink. That's right. She took off her bra and was swinging it around trying to catch a person in its musk. Hair-raising.
The good thing was she was probably hammered so she gave back my friend 11 dollars change for 10 dollars worth of drinks. Hilarious.
Whenever I find myself walking somewhere in the East Village, I am drawn to this bar like a salmon to the natal stream. Doc Holliday's is admittedly basic, and basically awesome. Pool table, some booths, a relatively non-descript bar --- nothing on the surface stands out. But when you order a beer, you have to check with the bartender to make sure they didn't undercharge you -- $2 Pabst, $3 house ales aren't all that common in this town. And when you start looking around and talking to people, you're as likely to run into a biker from Sturgis as you are a polo shirt-ed Hungarian exchange student looking to pick up da ladies.
It has a honky-tonk vibe with zero pretense, and it usually has a fun and friendly crowd. Plus, when you are staring down the barrel of a two-buck PBR, somehow things just make sense.
If you like dive bars, you must go to Doc Holliday's and I'd also say you must do a combo The Library/Doc Holliday's combo night as well.
The two bars are pretty similar: country music, ridiculously cheap beer and both crowds more than ready to get drunk. The time I was there though, I'd say Doc Holliday's has more of the "you're getting f*cked up, and you're getting f*cked up RIGHT NOW" vibe to it.
So basically, if you're looking to get f*cked up RIGHT NOW, go to Doc Holliday's. If making it past midnight is more your cup of tea, there are other dive bars to check out.
This could very well be a top 5 of my most favorite bars in the city ! I love love love this place.
I've only been once but made it with a large group of friends and we sang and danced and tried not to stumble to much. They have boots on the ceiling and some sweet beats in the jukebox. If I recall as well the drinks were oh so cheap. It is country music btw so you've got to be into that first before stepping in or else you're going to be very disappointed for sure.
I can do a PBR !
First things, first: Let's put this in context. We're not putting this bar up against the bar at The St. Regis, for Christ's sake.
This is the quintessential dive bar. Ugly. Sticky. Smelly. You would rather vomit in your mouth then have to do it in their scary bathroom.
Yum.
This is the charm, however. And if the cans of PBR don't make you think that you've sunk to a new level, the fact that they don't even bother to sacrifice valuable refrigerator space for them will (they are kept in an Igloo cooler behind the bar). As far as dives go, this is top notch and is certain to be fun after 6 PBRs .
My only complaint: As its divey reputation has proliferated and the LES has gone through a slight gentrification it's now filled with a lot of yuppies and ex-fratties who go just so they can feel what it's like to slum it every once in a while. I'm a yuppie myself and, goddamn it, this is where I used to go to get away from the rest of you...oh well.
oh boy. this place was dirty as hell and my beer from the tap was warm. ewww. and people looked inbred there. jk
awesome music, crazy people, good nuts (literally) and just so much fun to hang out and kill time there. i would definitely hit this joint again.
Oh man...cowboy boots hangin' from the ceiling, country music blasting from the jukebox, big buck hunter & pool? Honey, i call this heaven.
You want a dive? You get a fully authentic dive.
The smell of a dive bar gross you out? You should probably not go to dive bars and go grab an appletini up in Midtown.
$5 all you can drink Bud Light on draft on Tuesday nights is a deal no matter how you cut it. There is not an ounce of pretentious attitude in this establishment. And if the jukebox plays nothing but Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, then I'll be just fine listening to country tunes while I nurse my $3 can of PBR.
I danced on the bar here with my friend. I am pretty sure we were the only women in the entire establishment, and we managed to liven up the atmosphere merely with the presence of estrogen. I recommend this place if you're looking to get picked up, because believe me -- you will!
I believe this place may actually be filled with real cowboys or something. They have a "Bucket O' Beer" that you can get (a 6-pack in a bucket full of ice). I wasn't familiar with many of the beers.
This place smells a little like leather, and if you look above you, there are saddles and cowboy boots! Oh my!
Definitely a manly hangout! But if you are a girl here, you may not pay for a single beverage!
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