Garrison R.
Yelp
Look, if you like pretentious and overly expensive bars with a bunch of douchebags dressed in pastel button ups, then this isn't the bar for you. On the other hand, if you like the authenticity and grit of a traditional lower east side Manhattan dive, then this still isn't the bar for you. This place is fucking garbage.
What this bar lacks in charm, it also lacks in personality. The only thing more tasteless than the decor is the drink selection. We stuck to PBRs because the price can't be beat (like $2 a beer) and it was the most appealing thing they had to offer.
Funnily enough, their degenerate bartender was essentially a Pabst Blue Ribbon personified in both appearance and demeanor. He looked and smelled like a fat Aquaman from an alternate reality - where he is obese, forty, and lives in his mother's basement where he plays Grand Theft Atlantis all day and watches anime pornography for the plot. But in all seriousness, make sure you tip him well or he will holler like a banshee, bellowing to the entire bar about his poor compensation for opening a can. What a sad, sad adult virgin. He was tipped just fine, by the way.
Once inside this bar, the smell hits you before your eyes can see it - the stench of a million burps and a regurgitated onion from about 45 minutes ago. The walls are yellowed as though painted with old cum, and the art consists of a bunch of predictably classless posters and portraits. The place is trying to embrace its tragedy in what it presumes is a sophisticated manner, but it fails horribly, not unlike when a socially inept idiot wears a fedora. And yet, to the art's credit, for a brief moment it allows you to forget where you are.
If it's crowded, it's impossible to do anything but stand where you are and pity yourself. If it's not crowded, it's still horrendous and you'll end up standing where you are and pitying yourself. The bar consists of two sections. The first is a tiny path with a few tables filled with grimy rodential people, all perverts. These tables are never open, because for some absurd reason, these oafs come here. It's probably for the best that the seats are taken, because if you're standing uncomfortably in this grubby little cauldron, then you're more likely to leave, which is really the most fun you can have. Leaving was certainly the highlight of our night.
The second section is a turgid chamber at the back. Most of the space here is so wisely filled with a busted jukebox, a few busted arcade games, and The World's Worst Couch. Brilliant use of real estate. The couch...holy shit. It is the the bar's magnum opus. It's no exaggeration to say it's the worst couch ever, and I cannot lie. It's so low to the ground that you have to bend your neck back like a PEZ dispenser to talk to anyone. The color and feel are disturbingly condomlike. The cushion is so profoundly saggy that you fall into a different realm when you sit upon it, traveling through space and time. It may well be the gate to the underworld, which is unequivocally a destination I'd rather find myself in.
Next to the couch lies a path to the bathroom. Actually, the word bathroom is inaccurate - I'd say indoor outhouse or piss goblet are more apt descriptors. They must clean this hole every time a patron compliments a bartender, which I assure you is infrequently.
There is a little space in the back of the bar to stand, though. Do you like billiards? I hope so, because you're going to get jabbed in the throat with a cue by someone playing if you are indeed standing or sitting in the back of this pathetic speck of a bar. The seats around the table are the perfect distance from the pool table so that no matter where you are, there's an ass encompassing your entire vision, or a stick prodding your iris. They charge you to play, which is fine if you've got a few quarters. But again, make sure you tip this troll-under-the-bridge of a bartender heartily, or he won't exchange your dollars for coins, preventing you from playing any pool. That happened.
This bar is like the perineum of Rivington Street, in that there are bars akin to an asshole or genitalia on either side, and I'd much rather go into either of those than ever enter this nonces' cove ever again. Despicable. I would rather get head from a dementor than come back to this bar. I hope this place explodes in a fiery blast. This bar is a war crime. I can guarantee you that no one has ever found love here, only woe. It's likely that this bar is purgatory. I hope this disgusting heap of rancid cockroach shite tumbles to ashes at the hand of the Great God's lightning. This bar is a cavity in the mouth of Medusa. My soul is irreparably damaged from my attendance here. My life, decidedly worse. My heart, capable of love or warmth no longer. I am frightened by how awful this bar is.
On a scale of 1-10 I rate this bar anywhere from "shit" to "fucking shit."
Please, I beg of you-- no, I demand of you, to never go to Welcome to the Johnson's.
