This Beloved Brooklyn Spot From The 1890s Was Named One Of The Country’s Best Dive Bars–$4 Beers, Live Music, & A Century Of Charm

Sure, you could dress up nice, head to a speakeasy, and spend $25 on a martini, or you could head to a hole in the wall dive bar that’s teetering on grimy (in the best way possible), filled with familiar faces, and throw back $5 beer and shot combos. There’s certainly a time and a place for both, but nine times out of ten we prefer the latter. Lucky for us, outdoor lifestyle brand Huckberry went on a hunt to find the 50 best dive bars in America, and a cozy Brooklyn haunt earned some recognition! Sunny’s, Red Hook (#30) ----------------------- Sunny’s is a knickknack-adorned Red Hook saloon that’s been around for over 100 years. Since the 1890s it’s been operating as one guise or another, and was once a longshoreman’s hangout. Today, Sunny’s is run by Tone Johansen, the widow of the bar’s beloved namesake, serving up $4 Miller High Lifes and $5 Budweisers and Miller Lights. Beyond the beers, the bar hosts regular art shows, offers live music almost every night, and has a cozy back patio to hang out on. In other words, it pretty much has it all–there’s a reason the watering hole has been the subject of books and theatrical performances. The ranking writes: > Watching a weekend bluegrass jam at Sunny’s reveals a scene from a Brooklyn gone by, back when Red Hook was hard to reach. Antonio “Sunny” Balzano opened his eponymous space in 1995 inside a circa-1890 waterfront bar owned by his family, and a mix of musicians, mobsters, Coney Island performers, and other characters coalesced. Balzano passed away in 2016, three years after Hurricane Sandy almost took the bar under, but regulars came together to save it. Many of his paintings still hang inside, and his wife, Tone Johansen, still leads the Sunday jam. 50 best dive bars in America – NYC ---------------------------------- Besides Sunny’s, other New York City spots that made the list include the following: * Jimmy’s Corner, Times Square (#31) * Sophie’s, East Village (#32) See the full ranking. 📍 253 Conover St. Source: https://secretnyc.co/best-dive-bars-in-america/