B-Side — Restaurant in New York

came here the other night and the bartender was so rude… like listen, i work in food & beverage and i can understand the stresses of customer service, but i would NEVER be rude to a customer right off the bat. i walk in with my friend and immediately we receive nasty looks from the bartender. she asks for our IDs, and notices my 21st birthday had just passed… i kid you not she looks at a customer sitting at the bar, laughs, turns to me and says, “happy birthday, i guess” with a smirk on her face. i obviously saw that, but i decided to look the other way and proceed to act respectfully. she then asks what i wanted and when i gave her my order SHE SCOFFS and in the most monotonous voice replies, “yeah…sure”. Okay, strike two. i ignore the blatant rude remark, grab my drink and go to the back of the bar. and as we’re walking to the back a group of customers begin to mock me, making fun of my “first drink as a 21 year old”. like jeez. i guess this is the bar where all the almost 30 somethings come to make fun of people younger than them to make themselves feel better about painfully shriveling up like prunes! i guarantee you, old folks, its not your age that makes u old, its your attitude. so please, check yourselves!! im not the type to leave reviews but this experience was so beyond uncomfortable and angering. also, i would not have tipped the bartender but i did because i genuinely felt bad for her and im not a rude person unlike...

B-Side’s name is a play on its location on avenue B. It’s also, for the patrons who are waaaay too young to know, what they called the other side of 45 rpm record (those are the little ones), the side that didn’t have the hit on it. You can probably hear Cyndi Lauper’s “Girl’s Just Want to Have Fun” in your head, even if you don’t want to, but do you know “Right Train Wrong Track”? Welcome to the B-side!

This place is a quintessential dive bar, and it’s got everything you’d expect: Dingy lighting? Check! Battered furnature? Yep. Graffitied bathroom? Yessir! Colorful characters? A-plenty! Snappy bartender? Why of course! It also has the most important element, cheap booze!

Look, sometimes you want to sip artisanal cocktails, lovingly mixed and garnished, and presented with flair, in a refined atmosphere. Other times, you want to sit in someplace comfortably dim, and get lit on the cheap with other struggling New Yorkers. If that’s what you are after, B-Side is your place!

Come here first to pre-game, or after whatever to grab a last nightcap, or hell, stay here all night and maybe connect with some other troubled stranger. The truth is going to a dive bar usually comes with a sense of adventure, and sometimes a place like this can surprise you. It’s like the Stones sang, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need. Yep, that...

Expensive for any mixed beverage beyond the basics. The music is respectable — boomer hits, rap throwbacks — but tragically un-hip. Beware of trying to improve the vibe with their “jukebox”, as your song is likely to be cancelled by an overzealous bartender who would rather change the tune than serve you a proper drink.

If you, for some reason, find yourself at Side-B against your will, order something simple and make a beeline for the back and the pool tables ($2, but a...