Heights Artist John Tebeau Illustrates and Chronicles the City’s Bar Scene

By on May 6, 2018 10:30 pm in 11201, brooklyn bridge park, Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Food and Drink, Neighborhoods, Restaurants

Brooklyn Heights resident artist John Tebeau has, in common with your correspondent, a love for good drinking spots. Several years ago he started to do drawings of some of his favorite places. With some encouragement, he expanded this to a tour of Bars, Taverns, and Dives throughout the Five Boroughs, and accompanied each drawing with a description of each place, along with helpful hints on when to go, where to sit, what to order, and how to get along. John is as effective a writer as he is talented with pencil and brush.

It’s not surprising that John, being a Brooklyn resident, includes more Brooklyn bars (22) in his book than those from any other borough. Manhattan comes a distant second with 14. Staten Island is a surprising third with six; the Bronx and Queens are tied with four each.

There are only two spots in Brooklyn Heights that make his list: the Atlantic Chip Shop, at which my wife and I are regulars, and Montero’s, where I’ve been twice and should go back. He includes two very nearby spots: the Long Island Bar and Restaurant, on the Cobble Hill side of Atlantic at Clinton Street, and gives Honorable Mention to the rooftop bar at Fornino at Pier Six in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

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  • StudioBrooklyn

    Hard to miss the Brooklyn Inn, at Bergen and Hoyt, on the cover!

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    I always found the Brooklyn Inn to be kind of pretentious and cliquey. Its choice for the front cover tells me all I need to know…

  • StudioBrooklyn

    I’ve scarcely spent enough time there to make any assessment. It seems with bars these days it’s very hard to find a good middle ground between pretentious and creepily divey. Probably safe to blame rising rents.

  • Jorale-man

    I actually prefer the bars around the Heights (what few we have at least) to those in the slightly trendier neighborhoods to our south for that very reason. We’re not a cool enough area to breed pretentious bars but the real estate is too pricy to fall in the dive-y category.

    PS – no more open thread Wednesdays?

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales

    Had it set up last night, but forgot to launch it this morning. It’s up now.

  • MaryT

    Does anyone miss Annie’s Blue Moon? I wasn’t a regular but liked that it was always there, just in case.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales

    When I moved here in 1983 there was a lively bar scene on Montague. My favorite was Capulet’s, which closed in (as I recall) 1985 when the owner moved to Connecticut. The site is now Cafe Buon Gusto. There was also Slade’s, owned by Ira Slade, boyfriend of an old friend of mine from my Village days, which was, if I recall correctly, in the now former Rickey’s, soon to be James Weir Florist, space. (I’m sorry to see Weir moving from the place with the lovely display area in front.) Then there was a place that, as I recall, was called the Heights Saloon, which was (again to the best of my memory) where Housing Works was later, and is now (sadly) a real estate office.

    Annie’s opened a few years after I arrived here. Like you, I wasn’t a regular, but do miss it.

  • John Tebeau

    I haven’t found it pretentious (though one man’s heaven is another man’s not-heaven), but hey—you can always do what I call “bringing your own atmosphere” to a place with some friends. And I’m pretty sure you’d find at least a few places friendly, open, and unpretentious in this book, Arch, if you sat with it over a nice beverage and gave it a good look. Best, John

  • John Tebeau

    I’ve found that the more you look around, the more good places (however you define “good”) you’ll find.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Indeed, many “good places” are not right in the middle of the “middle ground” I referred to. And to be clear, I didn’t mean to imply complaint. :)

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    It was the Montague Street Saloon. There was also Foffe’s Bar & Restaurant where the James Weir Florist space is now.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    I have “brought my own atmosphere”and have had good times there. I just found it to be one of those places where if you’re not a regular, you feel it. I’m sure the book is cool but I honestly don’t have the time. Good luck with it though.

  • John Tebeau

    No complaint taken! Just throwing in my two cents.

  • John Tebeau

    Thank you, Arch. Take care.