Located at 43 West 26^th Street, Grey Bar is in the same location as the former Gstaad.  Essentially a sports bar (although not one of those super, upscale sports bars), Grey Bar offers numerous TVs and a spacious place to hang out with friends.  For us, though, there just wasn’t anything remarkable about the spot.  Probably not a spot worth going out of your way for.

Located at 2058 Broadway (between 70^th and 71^st Streets), Red Frog is the third wine bar location of the owners of Chelsea’s The Drunken Horse and Hell’s Kitchen’s Wine Escape.  Small cozy spot offers about a dozen wines by the glass as well as some Eastern Mediterranean tapas (try the Lamachune!).  Friendly staff too.  In all, a great addition to the Upper West Side NYC wine bar crawl.

Located at 315 West 39^th Street, Tir Na Nog is a bigger, though younger, sibling of the location on Eighth Avenue near Madison Square Garden.  Tir Na Nog 39^th Street has to be one of the biggest bars (size-wise) in Hell’s Kitchen.  The place has two spacious bars and numerous seating/dining areas.  We couldn’t count all the TVs in the place.  Tir Na Nog 39^th Street definitely represents the amelioration of the immediate vicinity of the area south of the Port Authority along 8^th Avenue.  The bar is worth a visit if you’re nearby.

Located at 245 E. 55^th Street in Midtown East (or is it Sutton Place?), Draught 55 picks up in the location formerly known at Blackstone’s (and, before that, Jimmy Walker’s).  Layout is practically identical to its previous incarnations: spacious bar area on the right side of the spot, a slightly elevated dining area takes up the rest of the place (this was where the pool tables were for Jimmy Walker’s).  A separate bar area in the very back of the space, beyond the bathrooms and kitchen.  The draught beer offerings number around two dozen, nearly all quality craft-beer. The bottled beer selection is solid too.  The food is somewhat standard bar/pub fare.  Midtown East/ Sutton Place needs more craft-beer focused spot like this and maybe one day, the nabe will have its very own craft-beer focused NYC bar crawl.

Located at 128 West Houston Street (in the old XR Bar space), Rogue & Canon is a new gastropub for the West Houston Street corridor that serves as the border between Greenwich Village and Soho.  Sometimes when we go NYC bar crawling, we attempt to decide whether or not the visited spot “counts” as a bar (it’s an age old debate that will rage, seemingly, forever).  Well, we’re gonna count Rogue & Canon as a bar (and not a restaurant), but it’s just about as borderline as ever.  About half the space is taken up by tables with place settings (which makes the place lean toward “restaurant” distinction).  But, during our visit, we noticed that even the patrons seated at those tables were mostly drinking and not eating.  So, that’s what tipped this spot toward being a bar.  Overall, pleasant staff, eight quality tap beers.  Creative cocktails with fascinating names (‘Russian Firing Squad’ and ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’).  The food was definitely in that gastropub-like classification (we had the fish and chips).  Rogue & Canon is worth a visit next time you’re hanging out in Greenwich Village or Soho.