Holiday Cocktail Lounge

02/15/08

Cheapest drinks in NYC

by travellingcanuck

With a good pint averaging 7 bucks in a good pub, this place is an oasis for the drinker and his wallet. The bar doesn't stock too many ingredients but it did stock 151, which immediately puts it into my good books.

A very friendly and chatty crowd, a no-frills environment and a generally welcoming and homely atmosphere make this bar an NYC gem. Definitely a spot to keep in mind for good times. Excellent both for the later stages of a date, a fun time with friends or for the purpose of going out in NYC without mortgaging your home.

A holdover from the down-and-dirty East Village heyday.

by Contributor

In Short
A curved bar adorned with Christmas lights and a larger rear section with tables and chairs make up this low-ceilinged basement space. Old-timers and struggling young writers in the first stages of alcoholism are welcome; chino-clad frat boys get glares. This is neither a pickup bar nor an intimate nightcap spot. With the drinks coming in below $5, this is the kind of place where you dump your girlfriend or go to hide.

11/08/06

Best Dive Bar

by steptothewu

This is one of the best dive bars in the city. Great place to grab cheap buds with some friends. The bartender is the man.

10/20/06

Right out of a Bukowski novel

by kem31753

The Holiday is always filled with characters half-bagged, on their way to becoming fully-bagged, and I like it like that. It hasn't changed in my entire life & I started going there in the '70's. Christmas tree lights aglowin'. Even though you can't smoke in NYC bars anymore, it's still smoky. Cheap booze, tall tales, and strange people. Just what you want in a dive. Seem to recall a pretty decent jukebox of music from the ages. I remember playing Patsy Cline. Or I think I did. Don't worry about bumping into any celebrities.

• Pros: Cheap, friendly, a real dive
• Cons: None

10/20/04

dive

by professor_tangueray

The Holiday remains, in my ten years of drinking in New York City, the unqualifiedly premier dive bar on the island of Manhattan. I have tried many, many, many dive bars. The Holiday reigns supreme. Though threatened by its popularity to become less than a dive bar and more of a hipster hangout in the late nineties, it has regained its stature. Cheap top shelf liquor poured in generous amounts reminds you at first sip what the nature of a dive bar really is, to dive into drink. It's not about being hip, contrary to what many think, or getting away from yuppies and meatheads and airheads. The no-nonsense family operation gives it a character that is unparalleled by other joints. Many think it is the bar that is doing the diving. Think again, its you. The bar provides the appropriate ambience. No one does it better than the Holiday.