Bar/Restaurant for board gaming near Midtown Manhattan

March 29, 2012 6:20 PM

[manhattan-bar-filter] Looking for a place around Midtown Manhattan where 4 people can relax, drink, and play board games on a Friday night.

We're trying to find a place (bar or restaurant) where we can get a decent sized table and hang out for a few hours and be strategy nerds that's not expensive, loud, or full of wasted people. It's going to be Friday night so I'm especially worried about this given what Midtown turns into on weekend nights...

If anyone's been to Pacific Standard in Brooklyn, that's what I'm trying to find here. A chill bar with a good beer selection and ample tables and seating to get our game on!

Midtown West is the starting point but obviously we're willing travel a few subway stops in any direction for the right place!

(We're meeting up in Midtown where people work because everyone lives in opposite directions and nobody wants to travel home for over an hour on the subway. Brooklyn or Queens is unfortunately not an option here.)

posted by musicismath to food & drink (9 answers total)

It's in the East Village, but Common Ground (Ave A b/w E. 12th & E 13th) is the most similar bar that I know of to Pacific Standard. I've been to Pacific Standard many times, but I've only played board games at Common Ground during the day on a weekend, so I can't tell you what it will be like on a Friday night.
posted by Frank Grimes at 6:49 PM on March 29, 2012

Common Ground is pretty crazy on Friday/Saturday nights.
posted by sweetkid at 6:55 PM on March 29, 2012

Jimmy's 43 is good with/for people playing board games. I don't know how crazy they get on a Friday night.
posted by pmb at 8:06 PM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Jimmy's 43 gets crazy on a Friday night.
posted by davidjmcgee at 8:22 PM on March 29, 2012

You might be able to reserve the back room at the Greenwich Treehouse? It's nice and comfortable, but if there are more than like... six of you it would probably be too tight.
posted by davidjmcgee at 8:23 PM on March 29, 2012

Great question. I'm guessing your best bet will be one of the hotel bars in the area (somewhere fancy enough to have a hotel bar, but not trendy enough for it to be crowded), or one of the Irish bars that's popular with the after-work crowd but isn't a late-night hangout.

One question: What time on Friday night, and for how long? Because there are the bars that are packed at 6pm, and the bars that are packed at 10pm, and they're usually not the same bars.

One thought would be getting a table downstairs at Rosie 'O Grady's on 52nd and 7th. They're consistently busy, but I usually don't see them so jammed it's impossible.
posted by swngnmonk at 8:27 PM on March 29, 2012

Good point swngnmonk. We're starting at 8pm and going till 11 or so. After-work joints will have lightened up by then.
posted by musicismath at 8:42 PM on March 29, 2012

The lobby of the Ace might work for you -- it gets quite crowded late, but earlier in the evening it's do-able and great people-watching.
posted by thinkpiece at 4:03 AM on March 30, 2012

If just having a place is more important than having a place particularly at a bar or restaurant, you could rent a rehearsal studio. The cost of the space rental would likely be mitigated by the ability to bring in your own more reasonably priced food and drinks! Plus nobody would bother you, you could pick the music and the volume, there is a 0% likelihood of drunk assholes, &c.

Midtown West is rife with rehearsal studios (and I don't know all of their food/drink policies) but a good starting point would be: Studios 353, Shetler Studios, Simple Studios.

I work at a rehearsal studio (not listed here) which gamers frequent, so this is definitely not unheard of.
posted by davidjmcgee at 7:30 AM on March 30, 2012