What could be better than exploiting the secrets that make something truly special? Well, that is the nature of the speakeasy beast. We have heard your requests and we are now going to spill the “wheres” and the “hows” of these prohibition-style drinking holes!
1. Angel’s Share – East Village
Where: 8 Stuyvesant Street
How to get in: Just walk into the Japanese restaurant (Yokocho), go upstairs, and go through the door to the left of the stairs. Walk in and a hostess will seat you.
2. Please Don’t Tell (PDT) – East Village
Where: 113 St Marks Place
How to get in: Located inside a hot dog eatery called Crif Dogs, you enter the speakeasy through a secret door in the restaurant. Go inside the phone booth/secret door, dial 1, and a waitress will ask for the name on the reservation and let you in.
3. The Backroom Bar – Lower East Side
Where: 102 Norfolk Street
How to get in: Go down the alley at Norfolk Street and look for the bouncer. Admittedly, the bouncer is a dead giveaway. However, this is an actual speakeasy from prohibition, so you will be transported to the flapper era once you navigate down the stairs and hallways that lead to the bar.
Where: 9 Doyers Street
How to get in: The spot is marked by a “Gold Flower Restaurant” sign and a dapper doorman. It is at street level so as long as you can read, you’ll be fine.
5. The Raines Law Room – Flatiron
Where: 48 West 17th Street
How to get in: Find the right black unmarked door on what is an otherwise unassuming residential block in Chelsea and knock. Hint: the stairwell down to the door is enclosed in a black awning and there is a plaque which reads “The Raines Law Room”.
6. Attaboy – Lower East Side
Where: 134 Eldridge Street
How to get in: No reservations, no menu, no website not even a telephone number. Attaboy is the epitome of understatements. Find the steel door with “AB” on it and knock (maybe more than once or press the buzzer).
7. Milk & Honey – Flatiron
Where: 30 East 23rd Street
How to get in: Look for curved silver doors and open them up – you will pass through a black curtain and then be transported to this speakeasy.
8. Little Branch – West Village
Where: 22 Seventh Avenue
How to get in: The entrance is an innocuous unmarked door on 7th Avenue. The telltale line that winds out from it, however, is more than enough of a giveaway.
9. The Blind Barber – East Village
Where: 339 E 10th Street
How to get in: The facade of this bar is a barber shop. You enter through the barber shop, get ID’d, told the rules, get oriented with the exits and bathrooms, and let in into the dimly lit bar at the back.
10. Bathtub Gin – Chelsea
Where: 132 Ninth Avenue
How to get in: Enter through the back wall of Chelsea’s Stone Street Coffee Company and you’ll find that it opens to reveal a low-lit speakeasy.
11. Employees Only – West Village
Where: 510 Hudson Street
How to get in: Once you find the glowing red “Psychic” sign in the window, you’ve found Employees Only. On the weekends, the bouncer outside will let you through the curtains to the bar.
