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.

After I wrote about Opal, a couple of commenters said that Metro 53 (a few blocks away) had a great happy hour. After having some strong 2 for 1 drinks at Opal I was excited to see if Metro could take on my liver and beat it in to submission. I was even more surprised to have showed up on “Detention Night: School is out but detention has just begun.” All the bartenders were dolled up in tiny pleated plaid skirts, curve hugging buttoned down shirts and the inevitable perky pigtails.

This probably explained the abundance of businessmen crowding the bar, sans ties. There were even a few top buttons undone on their uniform blue or white shirts. I ordered a drink at the bar. Top shelf liquor was only $5, well drinks and drafts at $4. If you want a seat you have to deal with waitress service, which would have been fine, but our waitress seemed a bit pushy and insistent. We ordered some food and a couple more drinks but every 5 minutes she was back. Get this… my friend even gave her an extra tip so she would leave us alone!

The club sandwich ($8.95) and an extra side order of fries were decent but overpriced. I guess if you’re drunk and hungry it would suffice, but I would rather hold it and get a slice or some street meat on the way home. There was a live DJ, which was playing some good tunes, but so loud you couldn’t have a conversation without yelling. The crowd in the seating area and back bar had a decisively “Nassau County” feel to it (according to my friend Mike.)

Before we left some of us decided to visit the restroom. Turns out you need to go through a door labeled EXIT, down a flight of stairs, then through a corridor, and then beyond that you’ll find the bathroom with a washroom attendant. Well aren’t we fancy? However, the last thing I want to see when I stumble drunk into the crapper is some person waiting for me to come out of the stall and give him a buck for a damn paper towel. Either they are trying to curb the amount of yuppies doing coke in the bathroom (dude that’s so pre-recession) or this is another way to pick your pocket while you’re inebriated.

On that note we move on to the +/-

THE +

• Many theme nights to break up the monotony of your usual midtown pub
• Live DJ spinning hip hop and Billboard hits
• $5 top shelf drinks!!
• The place is huge, with private rooms for large parties

THE –

• Music is too loud for conversation
• Unremarkable food for the price
• Too many business guys crowding the bar and trying to pick up ladies
• Pay per piss practices need to stop! Washroom attendants need to stick to the Waldorf

Metro 53, 307 East 53rd Street (btw. 1+2nd), 212-838-0007