Drink Up: Gothamist Revisits Nancy Whiskey Pub

We can't say we remember when this institution opened in 1967 (or that our parents were even of drinking age then) but it's been a mainstay since before the neighborhood was called Tribeca. Nancy Whiskey Pub is a bar's bar, a great place to drink beer, eat burgers (with cheese, $4.25) and linger. With it's proximity to venues like The Knitting Factory and Canal Room, it's probably not coincidental that the jukebox is so great filled with Pogues and Elvis Costello among others. It's not a place to order a cocktail but it is the only place in Manhattan to play bank shuffleboard. And absolutely the only bar where you buy the tee-shirt to prove you just did. It's cheap enough to be construed as a dive but well-done and never sketchy, and the curious upstairs is enough to make you feel like you fell up a rabbit hole (the building was converted from a stable). We feel bad for the waitress that has to negotiate the rickety stairs up to the loft area, especially when the bar advertises events "'til whenever." Drinking is even easier than usual when the bar tab is as much of a throwback as the bar.

Nancy Whiskey Pub
1 Lispenard Street
Corner of 6th Avenue, West Broadway and Lispenard Street
(212) 226-9943

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By Martha Burzynski in Food on November 4, 2005 2:19 PM

Comments [rss]

Joe

That bartender was unstable. Why provide business for a bar where you are made to feel uncomfortable? There are plenty of other bars in the city where the bartenders make you feel welcomed instead of shunned or insulted for no apparent reason.

Le Marq of Respect

*Gasp*

You spent 25 dollars in a bar!

You don't go back to bars because of little incidents!

I'd hate to think how I'd exist if I tried to avoid every place where something uncomfortable happened.

Le Marq of Respect

*Gasp*

You spent 25 dollars in a bar!

You don't go back to bars because of little incidents!

I'd hate to think how I'd exist if I tried to avoid every place where something uncomfortable happened.

Nathan

I used to go here all the time, actually pretty much twice a week for a number of months. But then after spending 3 hours and 25 dollars at the bar, I stepped out to smoke a cigarette and the great Barry glared at me when I went to stand in line for the bathroom. He growled something about prissy fuckers that want to use his bathroom without ordering drinks and told me to get lost. I haven't been back since. I'm happy to hear that asshole got canned.

ian

The upstairs is made for midgets.

kowgurl

goddam, I love nancy whiskey pub. Back ages ago, when I worked in advertising, I invited some asshole dudes I worked with to go with me, they said they couldn't go to a bar with "nancy" in the title, they were too hetero-- their loss.

Stu

I used to be a regular at NWP, but a couple of months ago Barry, the weekend bartender, was fired for kicking out a long time patron, and the place has gone downhill since there. Barry was an aggressive drunken Irishman who just wanted you to shoot the shit with him--scary at first, but one of the best bartenders I've ever seen. The place isn't quite the same without him.