Everyone Should Find a Bar to Call Their Own
"We drank to forget that our lives were a wreck"—Greg Barnett, "Sun Hotel #2"
After graduating from college, I spent practically every Monday night at the Thirsty Scholar. I was 22, living with my parents, working in food service, and I still felt utterly invincible. I worked at Sleepy Hollow Country Club. In the summer, I was the pool snack bar manager. In the fall, winter, and spring, I was a waiter. Like most country clubs, they were closed on Mondays. I took that opportunity to go to Starbucks and apply to jobs. Very often, my friend Jax would meet me there. In between our applications, we made plans for the evening, which usually involved going to the Thirsty Scholar.
Early in our first post-grad summer, I learned that the Scholar had trivia on Mondays, and I was looking for anything to do. If I could drink while doing it, that was a plus. I forget if we rallied a group during our first trivia session, but I do remember that we called our team Don Johnnelly, scrambling a friend’s name who couldn’t make it. We lost at trivia that night, but we had fun.
The hosts Ryan and Dan were both very engaging. The trivia itself was probably disappointing if you wanted a bar league version of Jeopardy. Yes, there were some categories that fit a more traditional mold, but Ryan and Dan usually awarded points if your answer was funny. They would also throw in different side games. During our first outing at trivia, we played “Whats in the Box,” where whoever guessed right got points and whatever was in the box (it was avocados). Other times throughout our trivia-going days, they threw in other physical challenges, like who could balance a PBR can on an angle first or who would bring their answer sheet to them first. They also would occasionally throw in questions about themselves, and we would yell at them that this was unfair, and we’d laugh.
Besides Mondays, the Scholar became our usual bar. Most of our friends were living at home for the next year, so whenever we needed a watering hole, the Scholar was usually our first choice. While a few bartenders circled through, I really became acquainted with three: Jen, Leslie, and Melissa. Each of them knew to crack open a PBR as soon as I walked in the door. Jen was pregnant when we started going to the bar. She was Irish, and she was the regular Monday bartender for trivia. Until she had her kid, it felt like she was there every single time I popped in. She was generous with her buybacks, and she would throw us free food from time to time. Leslie probably had the shortest stint. My most distinctive memory was that she asked me if I knew her name, and I paused, but I asked if she knew mine, and she responded “Crowley!” before turning around and looking at my card to see that my first name was James. Melissa probably had the longest tenure. She was Ryan’s roommate for a bit, and her boyfriend’s band, which Dan was also in, occasionally played at the bar.
Throughout the year after I graduated, I dragged most of my friends to the Scholar at some point or another. Sometimes it would be the start of our night, other times the end of the night, but many times, our whole night. We watched the Cubs win the World Series. We commiserated after Trump won the election. We went there to wait for the train on New Year’s Eve. We spent holidays there.
While this may all sound romantic, it’s important to note that this was just a regular bar. They didn’t try to get people to dance. They had a pool table, an Irish flag (many of the bartenders were Irish), other standard bar décor. They only had two single-stall bathrooms, cheap beer, and good people. The people who decide to patronize your bar are going to make or break it, and in the year after I graduated, the Scholar became my second family. Ryan, Dan, and the array of bartenders acted like older siblings for me and Jax, giving us their advice, perspective, and worldviews. Occasionally, they’d buy us drinks, and they always welcomed us with open arms. We were ready to drink and have a good time each time we set foot in there.
Throughout the time that we were going to The Scholar, it always seemed like it might be closing. Occasionally, a bartender would whisper that the owner was talking about selling, shutting down, or something. It never seemed like it would happen. They had a NYC location too, and I suppose that he wanted to focus more on that. It’s much more glamorous to be near the East Village than Pleasantville. When the bar closed for good, it did seem a little bit like a sign from the universe. I had just accepted a temp job with a major news organization, and I’d be leaving the country club for good. My Mondays were no longer going to be my day off. I wouldn’t even make it for trivia. At this point, I’d also begun doing standup, and that would take up more of my time.
During my last week at the country club, the staff threw me a going-away party, and they all agreed to go to my favorite bar, my bar: The Thirsty Scholar. The morning of my party, I got a text from Jax telling me that the bar would be closing, along with an Instagram post showing that it was over. The bar I’d made my home in for the year after I graduated was going away as I started my first big boy job. To some extent, I wish I remembered more from the Scholar’s final night. While there were plenty of fuzzy nights there, I remember almost all of them except the last one.
In the last few days, I was perusing through Reddit, and I saw a post from someone in their early 20s living in Westchester County, just like I had. They were asking how to connect with other young people to form friend circles. Lately, I’ve seen a lot of these posts pop up. When I was in my early and mid-20s living in the burbs, I wasn’t really unsure how to meet new people. I had enough friends around my age in close proximity, and comedy put me in touch with people about my age with similar interests.
Still, I felt like I would’ve felt lost without my bar. That’s not just the Scholar either. In truth, I probably had two bars that ultimately defined my 20s. In my 30s, I haven’t drank since I was 27, and in turn, I don’t frequent any bars enough to really consider them my own. There are a few places that I’ve noticed that I know bartenders, from doing comedy, but I rarely hang out. I buy my drink, and then I find out where the show is, where the mic is, who do I need to talk to for stage time. I’m also lucky. I have a strong circle of friends. I’ve met the woman I’m going to marry. Even though I wouldn’t advise to drink like I drank in my 20s, I’d still recommend that everyone in their 20s find out where their bar is.
The first time that I drank in a bar was in college after getting a fake ID. On a random Tuesday night, my friend Pat and I decided to give my fake a shot. We went to Murphy’s in New Paltz, which has since closed. At 19, they didn’t care that we had Maryland licenses, because they needed the students to keep the bar’s doors open. It was a regular spot for the frats and sororities, and even though neither of us joined either of those, we were happy to go and drink cheap beer from pitchers, strike out with sorority girls, and blast our eardrums out on terrible pop music.
By my senior year, my English major friends and I became Thursday night regulars at P&G’s across the street. We were always there for Tower Hour, and we always arrived early to ensure that we’d get a table. The bartenders started to know our pre-Towers orders, regularly pouring me a Guinness as I walked up after shoving my sweatshirt into a booth. Even though the bartender started to know my drinking habits, I don’t think he ever saw me as more than some dumb college kid looking to drown out a week of learning about Milan Kundera.
Your bar won’t be a bar from your college town, unless you graduate to townie status. While you’ll form memories in those college bars, those throngs of underage drinkers usually will not become your home away from home quite like the bars that you lay your claim into when you’re in your early 20s. Ultimately, these are your training grounds, but not your home base. Even Pat, who stayed in New Paltz for years after we graduated, has acknowledged that he didn’t really spend time in the bars that we frequented in college in the later years he was in town.
For the brief window after the Scholar closed, Jax and I would bounce around at other bars. We tried the taco place that took over the space that the Scholar existed in. They moved the bar to the other side. The food wasn’t that great. It didn’t last long. As a certified drinker, I was usually happy wherever we went, but nowhere really felt as cozy as the Scholar had.
In August 2017, Jax and I went on a bender of three shows in four days. On Saturday, I saw The Menzingers in Poughkeepsie, while she saw Alice Cooper and Deep Purple at Jones Beach. On Monday night, we saw Lady Gaga at Citi Field. On Tuesday, we drove up to Hartford to see Green Day. For kicks, I just typed in my three shows venues with my parents’ house as home base, and it’s about 5 hours of driving in that short span of days (thankfully, I only really took the train). During the drive back from Green Day, we’d gotten snippy with each other. We were both exhausted and hungry. We were looking forward to a restful Wednesday.
While I was on my way home the following day, Jax texted and asked if I wanted to grab a drink at Lucy’s. Even though I certainly liked to have a drink, I would’ve said no, because I wanted to rest. Except, Jax really didn’t really drink, so if she was asking me to grab a drink at the time, it meant business. We decided to go to Lucy’s.
Even though I knew Lucy’s had live music regularly, it always struck me a bit as an old-timers bar. Each time I drove past it in Pleasantville, I imagined the inside to be divey and unfortunate. To this day, I don’t know why Jax decided that was the bar that we should go to that night. When we arrived, I was surprised to see how modernized the bar was. It didn’t really look or feel divey as I’d expected. In fact, the bar looked almost brand new. Nothing like I’d imagined.
While we were there, we met the manager, Rob, who was behind the bar for a slow Wednesday night. On that night, Rob gave Jax and I space to chat about our stuff, but he also engaged us, chatting about the beers on tap. As he realized that we grew up watching VH1 Classic, listening to bands like Iron Maiden, Megadeth, and Kiss, we started to chat about music. Rob liked to shoot the shit about bands that had been formative for us, joking about the likes of The Misfits, Marilyn Manson, and others.
Over the next couple of months, we made Lucy’s our go-to bar when we needed one. We still weren’t necessarily frequenting it, but if we needed a place to go, we started heading to Lucy’s.
A few months after starting to go there, Jax let me know that there was a comedy open mic at Lucy’s. At first, I was a little dismissive. I was traveling to the city every day for work, and I’d regularly go on the weekends to do open mics, but I still went, introduced myself to the host and the booker, who also put on shows at Lucy’s. While I don’t necessarily search for community in comedy, it is nice when it finds you.
From doing open mics, working shows, and producing, I made friends that I still see regularly. Hell, Sean Barry and I now produce a monthly comedy show together in Queens. That was all at Lucy’s. We would grab drinks at the bar after mics, getting to know Rob and all the other folks behind the bar better than usual. When we worked the door at shows, we could hang out, drink, and chill once the comics were on stage. It was also a bar that let me run up a ridiculous tab and then only really charge me for a fraction of it. It all evened out, because I tipped about what I’d do to make it even.
While we mostly focused on the bar as our comedy hangout spot, there were inevitably times that we just went to hang out, spending at least one New Year’s Eve at the bar, dropping in for dinners, post-games, and others. I know Jax would usually stop in to get a Shirley Temple if she was taking the train out of Pleasantville.
During COVID, Lucy’s closed like most other bars did. Rob had an idea to revamp the whole space, which led to it re-opening much later than other bars and restaurants did. In the waning days of 2021, I would mention to anyone that I was disappointed that Lucy’s hadn’t re-opened yet. Right before I moved, I had grabbed dinner with a friend in Pleasantville, and we both parked by Lucy’s. As we were heading to our cars, Rob ducked out and invited us in to see what he’d done with the bar. It was completely revamped into a 70s/80s basement style, along with dubbing the main room with a stage “The Garage.” At the time, I joked with Rob that it was disappointing that they weren’t reopening until after I moved.
Over the holidays, after I moved to Queens, I met friends for dinner and drinks at Lucy’s on Thanksgiving Eve. We saw a few familiar faces, but I didn’t recognize anyone behind the bar or our server. I had a few Heineken Zeros and some food. They charged me the full cost. The layout was different. It was cooler, more fun, and definitely the type of place that I would’ve hung out in, but it wasn’t my bar anymore.
In more recent years, there’s been some fallout with people at Lucy’s, seemingly with the owner. I don’t know the details except that it seems like all the people that I knew from the bar have all left. Any sense that I had that Lucy’s was still my bar even years after leaving my hometown are truly gone now.
Not too long after I moved to Queens, I stopped drinking. Doing comedy, I still spend a lot of time in bars, but I can’t really say that there are bars that I’ve made my home. In the past few years, discussions about third spaces have exploded. As a comic, you naturally have those built in whether you’re doing open mics, club spots, bar shows, etc. If you’re working a day job, wherever you tell jokes becomes a third space, a de facto home for you.
Gen Z are also drinking less than the generations that came before them. Plenty of bar owners, venue managers, and other have commented on this. As I’ve been seeing these posts on Reddit asking for advice on how to meet other people in their 20s in Westchester, I can’t help but think that to some extent, maybe these people have little to no interest in drinking.
Despite this knowledge and despite the fact that I don’t drink anymore, my gut impulse is to tell people to try and find their bar. This is a chance to find a community of people who will see you help to celebrate your most excited moments, but will also lift you up when you feel like you need a stiff drink.
If you are unsure how to find your bar, I will say to first ask other people about your age where they like to go, but it’s also fair to explore on your own. Find a bar where it seems like people around your age are. Go on a busy night and see if you like that crowd. Go back on a slower night, chat with the bartender, find out what they’re like. Keep going back until the bartender immediately pours your drink when you walk in. I couldn’t get into Cheers when I tried to watch it, but there is a value in finding a place where everybody knows your name. It may just be a brief waypoint in your journey, but it will give you an escape and a sense of community where you don’t need to worry as much about shared interests, professional development, or history. The bar will stay with you for the years after you stop drinking, after you unfollow some of the other regulars on Instagram, after the staff turns over so much you don’t know a soul in it.