Something weird happened the other night on the way to the senate. By senate I mean bar and by weird I mean fucking awesome.
About three years ago, my favorite bar in the whole wide world closed down. Without hesitation, without warning and certainly without reason. It was called “International Bar” on first avenue and seventh street. For years my best friend, Sunshine, and I would go there monthly and drink cheap drinks and laugh as I tried pitifully to hit on the bartender.
It was a seriously dodgey dive bar. The actual bar surface area was made of warped particle board that was flaking in many places. The smoking area in the back was cracked concrete with a clogged storm drain. There was one bathroom the size of a post office box. It was covered in band stickers and it always smelled like four week old piss.
This picture was from there:
For three long years we’d walk by the shuttered bar and cry about how much we missed it. Surely it was being turned into some awful trendy clothing store or something. We found a new place, hardly a replacement, but we considered it gone.
But on Saturday night I walked by it, fully intent on telling the person I was with all about my long lost favorite bar…
… and it was OPEN.
Three years closed and it reopens with the same exact fucking sign, same address, same chairs but with a new non-particle board bar.
When does that ever happen? In New York!
When has a tiny little dive bar closed for three years and reopened?
Never.
Life is good. Like, really good.