We had a chance to visit some new spots and some old spots this weekend.  Of the new spots, we enjoyed Vanguard Wine Bar in Manhattan’s Kips Bay neighborhood the most.  Solid wine selection and a heckuva cheddar cheese dip.  One or two more spots like that and Murray Hill/Kips Bay will have a serious wine bar crawl on its hands.  We’ll have more details of our visit in a forthcoming post.  Across the street was the reliable Paddy Reilly’s, the only all-Guiness tap bar in Manhattan.  Seriously, this place has eight taps (one for each letter in the word Guinness) and each tap pours Guinness.  So, we just had to stop in for a pint there.  Other notable spots we visited: The Windsor, Marshall Stack and Boulton & Watt.

We were able to get some bar hopping done mid-week this week.  Among the places we visited were Battery Park City’s Black Hound, Midtown’s (or is it Murray Hill’s) Cash Bar and Murray Bar (these two spots are upstairs/downstairs from each other — same owners).  We also visited recently-opened The Royal on Fourth Avenue in the Village (it’s not often you hear Fourth Avenue in Manhattan as an address!).  We will have reviews of all these places in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned.

Over the past several days, we’ve read of several new NYC bars that have recently opened or are about to open.  There’s Dead Rabbit in Manhattan’s Financial District at 30 Water Street.  This place has several different themes including whiskey and craftbeer; apparently, there’s also a small store attached to it.  About to open in Kips Bay, Vanguard Wine Bar (530 Second Avenue) will be a welcomed addition to that section of town.  Even though there are a few wine bars a block or two west, there’s nothing along that stretch of Second Avenue (we may now have the makings of a Murray Hill Wine Bar Crawl).  Then there’s The Royal, a sports bar of sorts, at 127 Fourth Avenue (between 12th and 13th Streets).  If that address sounds familiar, it’s because that address was home to The Forum and, and going further back, Pop Wine Bar.  And, we still need to visit Cash Bar on East 34th Street.  As always, we’ll keep you informed on our progress with these and other spots.

If you have any ideas on new spots we need to visit, please drop us a note!

From our last update in mid-December, not too much has changed.  Most places remain closed and we gather that Nelson Blue will be moving to Midtown.  We will close this post on a happy note: Fresh Salt has re-opened.  Passing by there on a recent weeknight, we saw lights on, the sidewalk sandwich board out front and patrons inside.  Slowly, the bars and the other small businesses in the neighborhood are returning.  We can all take some joy in that.

Wishing you a safe and prosperous 2013.  Our New Year’s Resolution: More NYC pub crawls in 2013!

Best wishes for 2014.  Our New Year’s Resolution: More NYC bar crawls this year!

So, here we are on the last day of the year 2012.  Looking back, it was quite a year for us in terms of number of bars visited.  We visited nearly 80 newly opened bars in Manhattan, nearly 40 newly-opened spots in Brooklyn and over a dozen of that type in Queens.  And, of course, we returned to many of our favorites and not-so-favorites over that same time period.  Perhaps our favorite new bar opening of 2012 was New York Beer Company.  We’ve written about that spot a few times already in this space.  If you’re a craft-beer fan and you haven’t been there yet, then start 2013 off right and go to New York Beer Company.

As a follow-up to our post from earlier this month, it sounds as though numerous South Street Seaport bars, particularly the ones along Front Street (Stella, Nelson Blue, Bin 220, Keg 229), will be closed for several more months.  According to local community leaders, some of the historic buildings housing these Front Street bars will be under Restricted Use until March/April of 2013.  Only at that time can the whole scale renovations begin.  In the meantime, you can enjoy libations in that area at Jeremy’s Ale House and Meade’s, the two bars in the area that re-opened within a few weeks after Hurricane Sandy.

We had a solid NYC pub crawling weekend.  Checked out several spots on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, including Two Bit’s Retro Arcade and Fig 19.  We’ll have brief reviews on both spots forthcoming.  We’re gonna continue bar hopping this week, as this will be our last week of bar crawling before we take our annual Christmas break.  We anticipate visiting some recently opened spots in the East Village and The Windsor in Midtown South, (yet another) upscale sports bar in the Gansevoort Hotel on Park Avenue.  As always, we’ll keep you informed on our progress.