Midtown Lunch

It’s time for the 2012 Midtown Lunch Readers’ Poll. Your nominations are in, and between now and the end of the year we’ll be asking all of you to vote for the best Midtown Lunches in a whole range of categories. You can only vote once per category (so choose wisely), and official results will be posted after the new year.

The old staples like Rudy’s, Subway Inn, and Jimmy’s Corner will forever win the hearts of Midtown Lunch readers. However, deals can be found that are just as awesome elsewhere in Midtown. Notably, Vander Bar with its monster $5 wings, Galway Pub with its $4 craft beers, and The Junction with its many specials and fun atmosphere. We’ll mix the old with the new and see how the newbies fare. Vote for your favorite Midtown Happy Hour!

• Galway Pub
• Jimmy’s Corner
• The Junction
• Rudy’s
• Subway Inn
• Vander Bar

Vote for your favorite after the jump…

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Of all the bars in Midtown, Rudy’s and Jimmy’s Corner are the two I’ve heard the most about through word of mouth when I’m looking for a dive. A Midtown Lunch poll back in 2009 had similar praise with Rudy’s and Jimmy’s Corner gaining top recognition for best Midtown Happy Hour. Even though they have both been written up in our happy hour column and there are many other bars to try, I thought it would be rude not to give them a try at some point.

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When I began writing the Midtown Happy Hour column, I was incredibly excited to add in a Buffalo wing review. Wings became the cornerstone of my happy hour experience, and I began judging a bar, in part, because of their wing prices.

But I must lament, over the past month or so, I have noticed that wing prices are climbing. Over my 20-year wing-eating career, I’ve never seen prices like these. Even earlier this year wings seemed cheap. Lately, I’m having trouble finding anything under $10. (Notable exceptions are Smith’s Bar, with 75 cent wings and Vander Bar, with a $5 happy hour wings special). I have been doing some research, and indeed I found three articles written this year about the demand for wings and how it has been driving the price of wings up. Even Buffalo Wild Wings, who has been doing great in the stock market for several years, has been losing ground and has increased the price of its wings. Atomic Wings has also increased their prices, but a representative claims “we’re still not keeping up” — in 2011, wings were $1.09 per pound, and now they’re around $2.15 a pound.

Some articles I’ve read blame the rising cost of chicken, but The National Chicken Council gives a good synopsis on wing-o-nomics, and here was a line I found helpful:

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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.

I’m more than pleased to report that I stumbled across a pub I’ll boldly proclaim is my current favorite happy hour in Midtown. The backstory: I’ve been reviewing happy hours in Midtown every week for about six months, and I’ve been trying to steer clear of those that have been covered by Midtown Lunch in the last year or so for variety’s sake. Thus far, I’ve really enjoyed Vander Bar, the Irish Ivy, and The Junction, but this week I found a pretty amazing bar that rivals my favorites. The bar is called Galway Pub, formerly the Galway Hooker, on 36th between Madison and 5th. Let me tell you all the reasons why.

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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.

While trying to figure out a place to go for happy hour this week, I looked in my notes and saw I had made a note to look into Cassidy’s (55th btw. 5th and 6th) some time ago. It’s a rare occasion when you do a search for a pub on Midtown Lunch and you come up with no full blog post, but four, YES four references in comments or Profiled Lunchers’ write ups saying it’s good. According to readers, Cassidy’s is a go-to place and a good space, with a great burger, where the Guinness is fresh.

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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.

Whilst reading Grub Street earlier this week, I happened upon the name of a bar I hadn’t heard before. They covered an article about a hurricane benefit at The Three Monkeys (54th btw. Broadway and 8th), and although I wasn’t able to make it to the benefit, I thought I’d check it out since it hadn’t been featured in the Midtown Lunch happy hour column yet. It turns out The Three Monkeys (hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil, get it?) was once on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side. Yelp reviews for the newer Midtown location date back to early 2011, so it’s fairly new to Midtown.

I was hopeful as I approached. The bar has a decent deal on beer — the all day happy hour is $4 Yuengling and Lionhead drafts (16 oz) and there are also $6 wells.

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As I continue to hear news that many of our neighbors are still displaced by the hurricane, I thought it would be appropriate to try out a hotel bar for happy hour this week. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with hotel bars. They’re the type of place I love to go when I’m traveling for work or in an otherwise isolated airport hotel. It is a bar, after all, and sometimes they give you specials if you’re actually staying there. But rarely have I gone out of my way to enter a hotel bar in the city in which I live. I’ve always had the perception that the food is bad, the drinks are overpriced, and the service is not aimed to attract regulars. I was proven wrong a few weeks ago, when I had a great experience at Vander Bar, so I was hopeful that Silverleaf Tavern in the 70 Park Avenue Hotel (38th btw. Park & Madison) wouldn’t disappoint. I had heard from a friend they offered a decent happy hour food menu from 5:00 – 7:00. Indeed, according to their website, they have a nice selection of happy hour options: $2-$4 bar bites, $4 bottles, $5 house wines, and $5 wells, and $6 martinis.

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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.

Not long ago, McAnn’s pub changed hands. I noticed the new sign over the summer, but I had just gotten a chance to make my way back to explore. The updated name is The Irish Ivy (46th btw. 5th and 6th), and since it’s fairly new, there weren’t many reviews on yelp or elsewhere. I was curious to check out their happy hour.

What I found out… the Irish Ivy is a place where I could see easily see myself becoming regular. The happy hour is long, from 4:00 – 9:00. Bud Light and Miller Light is $4, wines are $6 and well drinks are $5. Although the deals aren’t the best I’ve seen in Midtown, they also aren’t the worst… and I could tell as soon as I came in that this is a bar where service is fantastic, and you’ll get taken care of. And the atmosphere is fun enough that you could sit here for the whole five hours and have a good time.

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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.

I was meeting some colleagues for drinks last week, and the only criterion I had regarding locale was that it needed to be in or around Koreatown. I threw out a few options, including Kirakuya (32nd btw. Broadway and 5th), a Japanese sake bar also serving lunch, that Clay spotted in 2010. (He did a great write up on lunch there shortly thereafter, might I add.) One of my buddies mentioned she hadn’t been to a sake bar in a while, so Kirakuya seemed to be the obvious choice.

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