All State Cafe

250 W. 72ND ST. (BETW. B'WAY & WEST END AVE.) 212-874-1883

BESIDES THE BAR of the same name in Boston, the All State Cafe was an inspiration for Cheers. Suki, the lovably brusque waitress that Carla was modeled after, worked there from 1976 to 1985, then started again in the year 2000. "When I came back, it was all the same people," she says. "We're serving leftovers tonight!" she tells the customers near me, and their lunch special actually does consist of the previous night's specials, combined with soup, salad and coffee ($8.45). "So basically, if you just wait a little, you can get the special for half price," my friend Milton points out.

My favorite All State Cafe story is about a woman patron who is compulsive about washing all her food. I made bartender Diane O'Debra tell me about it all over again.

"If she has a pasta dish she takes a cup of hot water and pours it on top." When she got banned, she had another facelift and came back. Nobody recognized her at first, but she did the exact same food-rinsing routine, so of course they knew who she was, even though she looked different, and kicked her out again.

(Another famous patron is a guy who comes in, orders two White Russians and then spreads his collection of miniature painted wooden animals over the side bar, and plays with them for hours at a time.)

I ordered a cheeseburger-made of high-quality beef, courtesy of restaurant supply company West Washington Meat-and some fried zucchini on the side. Milton ordered the fried chicken. "It's crispy, but not too crispy," he observed. "I wish there was more flavor underneath. Good but not great."

Diane stood up for it. "It's a little different, 'cuz it's crunchy, and it has a mustard batter."

I didn't really like it. We got popcorn shrimp with a Cajun tartar sauce that has a lot in common with Russian salad dressing. Diane's favorite entree is the Cajun jambalaya with chicken, andouille sausage and gulf shrimp, pretty reasonable at $13.50.

The All State is basically a great place to get a burger, drink and hang out. Beers are $4.25 to $5.75; the liquor is thriftier. A generous pour is $5.50, and the house cocktail is only $5, with a happy hour from 4:30 to 6:30. Diane also mixes up a mean pitcher of sangria.

"If you're on a mission to get fucked without too much money, this is the place to go!" Milton says, a rave review coming from him. Nick, of the band A Brief View of the Hudson, is a waiter there and says that despite rarely cracking $100 a shift, it's the best job he's ever had.

"I can wear what I want, the hours are flexible and I get a meal and a couple of drinks." The service can be a little gruff, he says, but it's really not bad; people do care.

"People here love it when you're sassy," adds Diane. "They love it when they ask me what to order and I say, 'Whatever the fuck you want!'"

When customers come in after 20 years, they always want to know who is still going there, and they almost always ask about Glenn, a former narcotics detective and regular since March of 1969. The bar opened in April of 1968 as W.M. Tweeds, but they had some problems, Glenn told me. It was known as a seedy pick-up joint, and Looking for Mr. Goodbar was based loosely on a Tweeds regular, Roseann Quinn, who was murdered.

"It wasn't anything like the book or the movie," Glenn explains. "She was a regular, she always sat at the bar where it was safe. A friend of her boyfriend went nuts and killed her. I know the detective that brought the guy back from Indiana. But Tweeds was always in trouble. The cops didn't like all the interracial things that were going on here, so they claimed they found all these drugs in the back. They brought the owner, Steve, in and said for $500 for each cop they'd drop the charges. Steve got wired up and met them in a bar, and two of them were convicted. Then he closed up for three months, and opened up in 1973 with a new name and tablecloths."

Kevin Bacon used to work at the All State, proving that he is indeed connected to everything. The customers look like regular people who probably couldn't get into Crobar, the barmaids are sexy and the sour cream apple walnut pie comes highly recommended. It takes a lot to get 86ed from this pleasant, low-pressure establishment, though rolling around on the ground while insulting the regulars-like a certain aspiring comedian I know whose name begins with an M-just might do the trick. o