Yankee Tavern

Yankee Tavern In the Bronx Is the Place to Be on Game Day | Eater NY

"On a quieter corner, just two blocks up 161st, fans from the immediate neighborhood watched the game from their own bar as they have for 100 years — the oldest bar in the Bronx. It’s a narrow strip of a barroom with a few high tops and a small back room, colored Christmas lights dangling above several flat-screen TVs and walls covered in memorabilia and murals of Yankee greats like Yogi Berra, Elston Howard, and Aaron Judge; there’s even a signed Derek Jeter poster with a large rip where people kept bumping into it. I ordered a pastrami on rye with mustard (tasty, if a bit stringy — not Katz’s) and a Jameson neat, and met longtime regulars: Jeff, who explained you can hear the P.C. Richards strikeout whistle (“wee wee woo wee wooo!”) from the stadium about ten seconds before you see it on TV; Joannie Martinez, who’s been coming for 24 years, used to work here and recommended the chicken broccoli pasta (her drink is a Long Island iced tea with pineapple); Craig, the 15-year bouncer who likes the wings, pizza, or pasta Bolognese; and Derrick, who painted some interior murals. Regulars like Barbara — who works for the U.N. postal administration and drinks Grey Goose with cranberry and lime — treat each other like family (“Somos familia”), hugging and joking even when opposing fans are present. Even on World Series night the place felt easy to move around, alive with war cries after a disputed play and full of the messy, affectionate energy of longtime neighborhood supporters." - Mike Diago