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The Blue Donkey Bar

489 Amsterdam Aven (83rd and 84th Streets) 212-496-0777 Transit: 1 to 86th St; B, C to 81st St

Opening a bar next door to your greasy spoon is an idea so brilliant it’s a wonder more people don’t do it. Connecting the two establishments at the back and filling them with arcade games? That’s downright inspired.

The Blue Donkey Bar and its adjacent sister restaurant Homer’s Blue Donkey Grill combine to form something of a pleasure factory for kids and adults. Both places sell drinks and feature games; the Grill has Ms. Pac Man and one of those Japanese “Drift” style racers, the Bar has Big Buck Safari, pool and foosball. The Grill will make you sliders, curly fries and milk shakes until late most nights, while the Bar features keeps in barely-there mini-dresses.

The Blue Donkey Bar is perhaps the quintessential Upper West Side dive, possessing a retro-futuristic, space-age interior with a glowing orb and illuminated blue panel above the bar. The inhabiting cast of characters are a bit otherworldly, too: graying, well-composed whisky imbibers, prostitutes flirting with hairy Hawaiian guys and lazy entrepreneurs drinking Bud at the bar while hawking pirated DVDs. Also present are slightly-too-ironic-for-the-neighborhood twenty and thirtysomethings who come for the cheap quart bottles of Sol and the twenty-four ounce cans of Natty Light and Colt 45. Those who are slightly more discriminating can get a bottle of Jimmy Buffet’s Corona-like Land Shark beer, or at the very least knock around some of that brand’s promotional beach balls hanging from the ceiling. The best thing to do, however, is to act like you’re at a Chuck E. Cheese. Blitz yourself on sugar, fat and alcohol and spend your quarters recklessly. A night at the Blue Donkey necessitates sacrificing your body to many forms of indulgence.

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