Midtown Happy Hour: Lucy’s is a Baja Getaway Overlooking TGI Friday’s

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 posts 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.

6:18. That was the train I used to always run, literally run, to catch. Working above the Manhattan Mall and living in the suburbs of New Jersey, I quickly learned that good, fast happy hour spots are not easy to find. Sure, there were the usual suspects, such as Stout, Feile and Blarney Stone, but oftentimes, those spots get so packed, I’d have to dart out almost as soon as I was able to (finally) get my drink. Oh, Penn Station, how I do not miss you and your time constraints. That said, all is not lost, my fellow Herald Square workerbees and Penn Station commuters. Lucy’s Cantina Royale, located steps from Penn, is a great spot to meet up with your friends and coworkers for some standard Tex-Mex fare, tequila, and every co-ed’s favorite – fishbowls.

Designed to replicate a Baja surf cantina, Lucy’s downstairs houses surfboard-shaped communal tables and a bamboo bar. In addition, a retractable rooftop tiki bar rounds out the upstairs.

Though the view from the rooftop is nowhere near the top of any New Yorker’s list (unless, of course, you fancy the look of TGI Friday’s), it does make for a great outdoor drinking getaway when the weather cooperates. The bamboo, flat screens, and wooden booths that line the walls of the rooftop certainly let you immerse yourself in the tiki bar-themed decor. Heat lamps placed throughout means a comfortable rooftop sitting even when it’s a little cold outside.

Sporting floral-printed mini skirts, the waitstaff serves up mediocre, but not bad, grub (with the exception of the guacamole, which was perfectly paired with house-made chips) and better-than-average margaritas.

Happy hour ($5 Frozen Lime Margaritas; $5 Red Wine Sangria; $3 Coors Light draft) is daily between 4 pm and 7 pm, with additional specials that vary day-by-day. But I suggest, if you’re going to a Tex-Mex joint, don’t get the Coors Light…

Lucy’s Cantina Royale, 1 Penn Plaza (btwn 7th & 8th), (212) 643-1270

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