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Beer Goggles Bar & Grill

293 Van Duzer Street Transit: Stapleton [Staten Island Railway]

(718) 816-4537

Beer Goggles Bar & Grill allegedly hires unlicensed bouncers, its owner has been charged with operating as a bookie, and the place has been raided by police who took sledgehammers to illegal gambling machines. (Perhaps unaware they were being caught on video, the cops proceeded to stuff the cash into their pockets.) But the bar is perhaps best known for a 2008 incident in which a pair of policemen caught the bartenders serving minors. The uniformed officers proceeded to hand out summonses and order the place shut down. The pub’s denizens didn’t take this lying down, however, as s pair of drunk barflies attacked the cops, sending one of them to the hospital. It turned out that the assailants were off-duty firemen, which stoked a new wave of animosity between the NYPD and the FDNY. (Resentment still lingers between the groups, dating back to 9/11 when Giuliani scaled back the Fire Department’s recovery role and a bunch of firefighters went bananas, knocking over barricades and throwing blows at police.) The aftermath of Staten Island’s “Battle of the Badges”? The policeman had emergency surgery on his hand and the firefighters were suspended without pay for a month. Beer Goggles, however, was back open within a week.

With its perfect combination of seediness, depravity and creature comforts, it’s not hard to see why people would risk their lives for the place. First of all, it’s well-named. The “the more I drink, the better you look” theme is highlighted by a psychedelic, black-lit mural that features the bar’s bespectacled Clark Kent-esque mascot holding up a frothy mug and noting its ability to “Turn BOW into WOW!” In that same room is the best air hockey machine I’ve ever played on, a neon green unit that makes a cool metallic sound whenever the puck hits the side bumpers. There’s also a vending machine selling cigarettes and a “male enhancement” pill called VIM-25. (Read: a Viagra-substitute composed of Chinese herbs.) The drinks are cheap, too. At least I think they are. After my buddy Brandon and I ordered a couple of beers the bartender—a fairly slow, rather slovenly, guy—told us they would be ten dollars. We gave him a twenty and he handed Beer Goggles Bar & Grill back our change, which came to exactly fifteen dollars.

Brandon, a touring musician who recently moved onto the island, insists that the right-leaning, architecturally-challenged borough has its own culture, one as far removed from Manhattan as it is from Cleveland. To him, this isn’t a good thing. But hell, he lives cheaply, has ample parking for his van and, if nothing else, goes to sleep knowing his firemen will fight to keep the local dive bars open.

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