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Single Room Occupancy

Critics' Pick

360 W. 53rd St., New York, NY 10019
near Ninth Ave. See Map | Subway Directions Hopstop Popup
212-765-6299 Send to Phone

Reader Rating:
6.0 out of 10
|
2 Reviews | Write a Review
Scene: Live Music, Wine Bar

Yun Cee Ng

Map Rate & Review

Nearby Subway Stops

C, E at 50th St.

Payment Methods

American Express, MasterCard, Visa

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This venue is closed.

There's no sign outside this basement hideaway, just a glowing green sconce and the faintest throb of hip-hop music. But don't worry: No one's going to ask you for the password; just ring the buzzer. Suddenly it's as if you'd passed through some magic portal, transporting you from Ninth Avenue to Ludlow Street, or maybe Berlin—where a diverse, good-looking crowd sips beer and wine in a shadowy space the size of a small Starbucks.

6.0

"Mixed Reviews"
Average Reader Rating
on a Scale of 10

50%	Would you go back?
100%	Would you take a date?

Fantastic

cmrougeron from | Posted on 2/13/05

Overall Rating: 10 (Highly Recommended)

Elegant, different, unique

For Whom the Bell Tolls...

KRZa from | Posted on 6/6/03

Overall Rating: 2 (Not Recommended)

DING DONG! With its mysterious peephole and quirky doorbell, Single Room Occupancy might be the first bar especially designed for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Below street level and way off the radar, SRO certainly has a mystique. But aura alone doesn’t cut it. Although the beer is excellent—all too easy to get bombed on their $7 Brooklyn Monster 11.8% alcoholic ale—this faintly lit “speakeasy” is nothing more than an overpriced cramp-shack. It tries to use its weakness, an inexcusable “bowling-lane” sized floor space, as a gimmick but who wants to party in an outhouse? As my Japanese blind date pertly put it, SRO is “very shady”—probably because the majority of its lights are on the floor covered up by standing patrons who couldn’t find stools.

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