Midtown Lunch

If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so I thought maybe it was time to introduce a happy hour column to the site. Every week, our Happy Hour Correspondent “Mamacita” will post about a different bar in Midtown that fits the Midtown Lunch mentality: unhealthy food, not lame (unless it’s lame in a cool way), and most importantly… cheap.

My intrepid search for Midtown’s best free-buffet happy hour lead me this week to “Broadway” Langan’s Pub & Restaurant. Langan’s free appetizers are not widely publicized, perhaps because they don’t want us freeloaders making a dinner of it? The claim is they have a free buffet for patrons drinking at the bar, but after that whole Channel 4 happy hour failure, I felt a bit of trepidation. Would they pull the bait and switch? I called and they assured me of the happy hour so I rounded up the troops and set forth to feast on free food and good drinks.

I arrived at 6pm and the bar was packed with corporate workers from the nearby offices. Suits a plenty, even a hot chick had to fight to get a seat at the bar. The bartenders are pretty hurried due to the large crowds but they are still nice to look at, and have great accents (for the ML ladies.)

Straight away Langan’s proves to be your usual Irish themed restaurant with Irish bartenders, a white linen dinning room, and large flat screen TV’s scattered throughout. In the front nook there’s a room called the “The FOX Hole” dedicated to the broadcasting company and featuring a multitude of celebrity photos. There are also stories of the NY Post’s columnist Steve Dunleavy visiting here to get drunk. I did enjoy my girlfriend’s take on the décor:

“The carpeting was dark green and patterned and really, really worn, reminding me of the indoor/outdoor carpeting my grandmother insisted on putting on her mobile home stairs!”

We ordered drinks and that’s when I found out the sad truth: Nothing in life is free. Drinks were $6 for most domestic draft beers, $8 Guinness, $7 for bottled beer, and $12 for a martini. As I walked to the back of the bar for some eats I found another gloomy sight. A lukewarm and sparse bin of soggy chicken wings and dry jalapeno poppers.

Not only were the drinks overpriced but within minutes of scoring a chicken wing and popper the trays were finished off for good. At that point my remaining friends arrived, but with no food and only pricey drinks around we bolted for greener pastures. It seems some things are too good to be true.

THE +

• Bartenders with lovely accents
• Free bar food, if you come very early
• Convenient location if you work close or are going to the theatre

THE –

• Mostly corporate workers with their co-workers, so there is minimal mingling potential
• Free eats are gone almost instantaneously
• Pricey drinks, no drink happy hour
• Just go to the Pig and Whistle across the street already!

Langan’s, 150 W. 47th Street (btw. 6+7th), 212-869-5482

Photos and post by Mamacita