Reporting live with the 2nd day of my hangover still slammin’ in my head like a terrible rock cover band at 3 am. I can barely open my eyes in the blinding light of the sun, and a credit card is missing from wallet, which means I OBVIOUSLY had an amazing time on the annual Halloween Pub Crawl 2017.
The Halloween Pub Crawl was not my original idea, I used to be a lowly participant on my best friend’s family’s Crawl. She comes from a big Irish Catholic family with 5 brothers and sisters, and innumerable cousins, so there were always enough people for an entire pub crawl just by inviting the family. Since then, my best friend moved away, and her cousins are less likely to hang out with me without her. (I’m still hanging out with her aunt et al. this upcoming weekend for the NY Marathon, more on that coming next week). Anyway, now that all of my friends expect a Halloween bar crawl, the organizing is left up to me. This year, Facebook invitations went out in August, as is necessary with our crazy New York schedules. I invited about 85 people, and made sure the group was open for friends of friends to invite people. Overall, we ended up with 103 invited, and about 50 people showed up. Not a single member of my family. Not bad!
For the past three years, I have been organizing the Crawl by myself and the last two years I planned it to be held on 14th Street, from west to east. This year, I decided to go old school to the Lower East Side. It’s annoying to get there on the subway from the Upper West Side, but #WorthIt because you only have to walk approximately 15 steps to get to another bar. Also, the looks we got on the subway were priceless. I was a gumball machine, but I think a little kid thought I was a clown and he had a minor breakdown when his mom told him to sit next to me.
5 days before the Crawl, I published the google map of our route, which included walking directions AND my own notes about drink specials. I tried to only pick places with major drink specials, since this was a marathon, not a sprint. I took out $100 cash and hoped for the best.
I won’t recount the whole pub crawl because it would be boring. Also because I remember less and less as the day goes on. But ultimately, we hit 11 bars over the course of 8 hours, and I had 16 drinks and bought three slices of Artichoke Pizza (LET ME LIVE!!) for $114. Not bad!!
This is the link to the original pub crawl map. And here are the bars we actually went to, not in exact order, necessarily, because my memory fails me:
- The Grayson
- Double Down Saloon
- The Hairy Lemon
- Mama’s
- Ace Bar
- Rue B
- 7B
- Bua
- 11th Street Bar
- B Side
- HorseBox
- Planet Rose
We started at the Grayson, and as usually I was running about 30 minutes late. I knew it would be an all-day event, so I figured it would be fine. Sure enough, we arrived and we were the first ones there! Grayson is a Wisconsin bar, which I did not know (Go Badgers!), but that worked to our advantage because they had $5 well drinks and an amazing DJ spinning live during commercials and time outs. There were a lot of time outs. I originally picked this bar because it had $5 mimosas, and I thought that would be a good way to easeee into the day of drinking, but instead I had one cider and switched straight to gin, which I would continue to drink for 9 more hours. We waited for 3 more people to arrive then walked one block away to the next bar, Double Down. Drink Count: 2.
Bar #2 and my memory already starts to fade. Why? Because the bar had 2-for-one happy hour, with well drinks = $6 (aka, $3 each), and the bartender was pregnant. Again you may ask, why does this matter? Well, because I think she was pouring all of the alcohol she couldn’t drink into our cups. But hey, I’m not complaining! We stayed at Double Down for over an hour because the drinks were incredibly cheap and because they had an awesome outdoor area and the weather Saturday was to die for! By the time we went to the next bar, we officially had 17 people on the crawl and it was in full swing. We wanted to switch to a bar with TVs so we could watch the Gator Game. HUGE mistake. Double Down has TV’s, but they only play porn. I’m not kidding. Drink Count: 5.
Anyway, we went to go to Hairy Lemon (the old Croxley’s), but we quickly found out by the overflow crowd on the sidewalk that Hairy Lemon is a Penn State Bar, and they are much better at football than UF this year. We vetoed Hairy Lemon. Luckily, this was the Lower East Side, and there was another bar literally next-door, Mama’s. And that bar next-door had 16 kangaroos in it. Again, not kidding. Only in NYC. We decided it was not an option to hang out with the kangaroos. They agreed to put the Gator game on for us, which was a mistake because we were already losing by nearly 20 points in the first 10 minutes. I decided to distract myself and put on a Kangaroo costume. Then people started to get hungry so we went in search of a bar with food. Drink Count: 6.
We did not find a bar with food. But we DID find another bar, Ace Bar, and they DID let us bring in our own food. A few people got slices of pizza. I did not. But I did have another drink! Drink Count: 7.
More people joined us on the crawl, and my memory of the order of bars gets a bit fuzzy here. At some point we went to 11th Street Bar, we also went to Rue B, and Bua, and we headed (RAN) to HiFi because Happy Hours everywhere were about to end (it was 7:15), but HiFi said online that their happy hour was until 7:30. I clearly needed to get my butt there, since I was only at Drink Count: 12.
Well, joke was on us, the rude bartender told us that actually their website was Fake News and their Happy Hour only went until 7. LAME. We decided we did not want to be patrons for this alternative facts bar, so we left. Drink Count: Still 12.
We headed to Horsebox, where I ultimately must have decided I was not at all done drinking, because instead of paying in cash, like I had been doing all day, I decided to open up a tab. Daddy Warbucks of Gin and Gingers, apparently. This was a stupid move for 2 reasons: A. I definitely did not need drinks 13, 14 and 15. And B. I hadn’t used my card all day, so of course I forgot I had put it down and I left my credit card there. TGFFP. (Thank God For Fraud Protection). My new card should arrive tomorrow. Drink Count: 15.
Slowly, people decided they absolutely NEEDED to sing karaoke, as people always decide after 15 drinks. So began the slow exodus across the street to Planet Rose. Planet Rose is the dingiest and grossest of all karaoke bars in New York, which of course makes it the best. Apparently, you can sing songs there for free during the week, but I’ve only ever been there during the weekend, when it costs $2/song. Luckily, I had some cash left since it was clearly necessary at that point for me to croon Fiona Apple while laying on the probably-bed-bug-infested couch. Drink Count: 16. Karaoke Count: 1 song. Dignity Count: negative.
I managed to find my way, by myself, to Artichoke Pizza, which I had sworn all day I would end the night with. I bought three slices, one for me, one for me the next day (I’m so smart, even when highly inebriated), and one for my boyfriend. Turns out he doesn’t even like Artichoke pizza, so I still have a slice in the fridge 3 days later. If my hangover doesn’t go away by tomorrow, I think I know what I will be having for breakfast.
Overall, a major success. We had almost 50 people. A friend from high school who I hadn’t seen in 15 years came out. My costume was super fun, and comfortable, and I will be posting a DIY on how to make it tomorrow for real Halloween. And best of all, I didn’t die. For all of you New Jerseyans out there, Happy Mischief Night!!
