30 to Midnight

The Patriot, Tribeca

Thursday, 10pm

The Patriot Saloon
110 Chambers St. (Church St.), Manhattan

Sara loves it when her AI downstairs neighbor sits outside in the space below her bedroom window and yells at his girlfriend inside. She loves it when he does it at 10:20 and 11:35, but really enjoys it most when it's Midnight, 1, 4. Yes, this really happens. She's called her landlord saying, "I swear he's not malicious, just young and unaware." Yet it continues, and it's not even spring or summer or warm enough to bring a laptop out because you simply cannot tear yourself away from your movie while you have a cigarette. Volume up. 2am. Yes.

Angels & Kings, East Village

Sunday, 12:20am

Angels & Kings
500 East 11th Street (Ave. A), Manhattan

Can you name a Fall Out Boy song? Can we? Possibly, though we can't say for sure. What we can say for sure is we keep getting spam about Don Henley in concert. Must be an AA thing. 

Wondering why we're talking bands? A guy in Fall Out Boy (who turned 30 in June 2009) opened Angels & Kings a couple years ago. He's the guy who is married to Ashlee Simpson. She's the girl whose sister is Jessica. That's the Simpson who dated Tony Romo. He broke up with her the Night Before Her 29th Birthday. That's what we call AI-behavior, and not just because the Cowboys QB is also 29. 

Back to the bar. Here is a place to find those who are nearing 30, but aren't quite there, in spirit or in actuality. 

B-Side, East Village

Saturday, 10pm

B-Side
204 Avenue B (12th St.), Manhattan

"You know it's AI when you smell cloves," said Karina as we sniffed B-Side from a block away. That was before the fitted-black-t-shirt-dirty-hair situation came into sight. And we thought uniforms were limited to half a million NYC elementary schoolers. Ha ha. We're funny when we compare B-Side's patrons to third graders. 

Drop Off Service, East Village

Saturday, 9:15pm

Drop Off Service
211 Avenue A (13th St.), Manhattan

Adjacent to InAppropriately named Destination Bar, this former laundromat is actually a place someone over-30 would want to go, before Midnight (unless school's out).

At the bar we met Mario, a 31 who recently returned from Iraq (eight years total in the army) to the neighborhood where he grew up: the east village. Pouring us each a sip of his Three Philosophers ale (Belgian dark brew plus cherry lambic; quite nice), Mario told us about Drop Off Service's great bartenders (knowledgeable, friendly), great beer selection ("number one rule: don't order a bud light"), and great happy hour (3-8pm weekdays, 1-8pm weekends, $3 beers). Kings Head Tavern (222 E. 14th) and Blind Pig (233 E. 14th) are his second favorite bars, but he agrees that weekends are tricky in these parts.

Drop Off Service was AA when we entered, but that doesn't last on a Saturday night, and the blasting music makes it even easier to exit. Weeknights, however, linger longer in AA, and you don't have to scream your conversation.

Sweet Paradise Lounge, Lower East Side

Thursday, 10:30pm

Sweet Paradise
14 Orchard St. (Hester St.), Manhattan

We can't figure out Sweet Paradise is a divey or a designy bar, and we like that confusion. We also can't figure out what happened to our picture. If we had that picture you could see the shelves showcasing candy, a memory of the location's previous tenant (maybe they should put some socks up there too). Anyway, because this place is owned by the Welcome to the Johnsons people we expected AIs in abundance, but that's the difference between weekdays and weekends, and Orchard and Rivington: Room for AAs.

Barfly, Gramercy

Thursday, 7:30pm

Barfly
244 Third Ave. (20th St.), Manhattan

Age Appropriate? Check. Almost everyone eating? Check. Games on? Check. Not your typical Third Avenue crowd (meaning what you'll find in the 30's)? Check.

Oh, that's supposed to link you to something it seems we've not yet written. Come back for it. 

The Edge, East Village

Tuesday, 7pm

The Edge
95 East 3rd St. (1st Ave.), Manhattan

A friend of 30toMidnight plays in a pool league. She keeps telling us she's no good, which sounds a bit Fast Eddie Felson, so we won't play her for money, but we will accompany her to a night at The Edge (some time league venue). Bartender laughs when we ask average patron age on weekends, but assures us it's mostly AA the rest of the week. Fast EF agrees, and tells us her grandmother used to say it's a sure sign of misspent youth if you play pool well. "But as I am well past the youth part of my life - in the chronological sense, not the peter pan sense - it no longer applies."

Aces & Eights, East Village

Friday, 9:59pm

Aces & Eights
34 Avenue A (3rd St.), Manhattan

Recently an owner of an Upper East Side bar told us there was only one bar in the neighborhood he finds disagreeable: Aces & Eights (1683 First Ave.). That's funny to us. He described "a game with plastic cups and ping pong balls" with disdain. That's funny too. Anyway, as you can imagine, the downtown sibling is closely related, and younger. Avoid. 

Botanica Bar, Nolita

Sunday, 9:15pm

Botanica Bar
47 E. Houston St. (Mulberry St.), Manhattan

It was the look of the banquette/couches that prompted our night's companion to pull us down the steps into dark Botanica Bar. From the street we assumed this was a place for Age InAppropriates. Inside, however, we were surely not the oldest in the bar. Neither were we the whitest. That honor went to the two hilarious polo-shirted guys singing-karaoking Biz Markie.
Not surprisingly, bartender says weekends get young in here while weekdays vary, and nothing is certain after midnight. What is surprising was how quickly a pint of Guinness arrived, and how watery it was.

Superdive, East Village

Friday, 11:59pm

Superdive
200 Avenue A (13th St.), Manhattan

We expected young, but we did not expect the AI poopstorm we encountered at Superdive. Sheesh. Who wears heels they can't walk or stand in to a keg party? Oh, frat girls, the kind still in college.
The bottom picture is of the employee who came outside to do crowd control, which really only cleared the sidewalk for a moment. 30toMidnight did not like any aspect of this place, though we imagine the nearby bars are reveling in the spilloff.