It's last call for beloved Park Slope dive bar Jackie's 5th Amendment. The old saloon, which has been owned and operated by the same family since the '50s, will close next month on September 14th, bartender Tony Ferrara tells us. "The owner's health is deteriorating," Ferrara explains. "It's going to be taken over by the pharmacy next door."
Jackie's, known for its cheap drinks and mini beer buckets, was beloved for being a no-frills sanctuary in a sea of all-consuming yupsterfication. (Last November, employees of the bar petitioned President Obama to allow the bar to secede from Park Slope.) "I'm just sad," Ferrara says. "We open up at 8 a.m. for people getting off the night shifts. Back when it was Costello's in the '60s my parents used to come here to drink. It's a shame to see these kind of bars leave the area, because once they're gone they're gone forever."
News of the closing, first reported by Brooklyn Magazine, is hitting Park Slope resident Lauren Evans particularly hard. "Oh man," Evans said via Gchat. "Fucking dlfkjaldfkshjaS>jkdhIt. GOD DAMN IT. It was reliably empty, even on Friday nights. Very rarely did I see anyone under 45 venture in there. There was a jukebox, and everyone across the bar would always murmur approvingly when we put on 'Telephone Line.' (Which was always.) I'm getting teary."
If it's any consolation, which it probably isn't, Smith's Tavern is still open—for how long is anyone's guess. As one Yelper put it, "The yuppie zombie stroller literati speakeasy gossip blogger artisanal narcissist yoga gluttony carpetbagger apocalypse is upon us."
