Antique Sale
The Levee
Williamsburg
718-218-8787
On January 7, Howard Hunt took the keys and ran. Clutching dollar bills and loose change, he and girlfriend Susan Surdacki hotfooted it to Williamsburg, where they breathlessly unlocked the Antique Lounge, a mistake they hoped to correct.
The Antique was a Victorian-themed bar. Imagine: gold tin ceilings, a sea of couches, acres of red velvet and enough chandeliers to keep Con Ed solvent until Armageddon. "You couldn't turn your head without hitting a light bulb," says Hunt, a lanky Texan with a goatee and a Marine's haircut.
Antique replaced Kokie's, where "powdering" one's nose trumped beer. The Antique hoped to capitalize on the prime N. 3rd and Berry location (which has housed saloons for more than 70 years, according to Hunt). Yet drinking in a prostitute's lair did not tickle Williamsburg's irony bone. Business tanked.
For more than a decade, 38-year-old Hunt worked for the Gingerman, a Texas-based brewpub chain. In 1997, when Gingerman expanded to New York City, Hunt helmed the opening. Seven years later, the man that "thrives on challenge" remained, eye-bleedingly bored.
In November 2004, he heard whispers that Antique was for sale, chandeliers, liquor and toilet paper included. Incognito, Hunt assessed the digs to "see what they were doing wrong." Décor aside, Antique had "awesome bones"-clean keg lines, non-clogged toilets, handsome brick walls. It was ripe for a brewpub makeover.
Hunt cold-called Antique. They were eager to sell: "Some people get it in their heads that a space is cursed," Hunt says. "I didn't care." Lawyers were retained. A tentative mid-December 2004 takeover was set. But "who knew lawyers didn't work in December?" Hunt says. The deal was sealed January 7, which circles back to Hunt and Surdacki (girlfriend and former Gingerman coworker) rushing to open Antique, a name not long for this world.
When National Geographic magazine eliminated its gold, oak-leaf border and replaced it with a solid rectangle, change was sloth-like: Leaves were excised, one or two per issue, until, a decade later, voila! The current solid-gold border became template. Such was Surdacki and Hunt's goal.
For about a month, the bar toed the Victorian line. Then couches and lamps were sold, red velvet removed. In came artwork (slice-of-life gas-station photographs). Hunt bought eBay bar paraphernalia (he particularly enjoys an Old Style sign reading COOL BREW). Come March, the duo "unveiled" the Levee, an unabashed local bar serving cheap beer and?Frito pie?
"That's a little bit of our Texas hospitality," says Hunt. Until 4 a.m., drinkers scarf $3 corn-chip pie-Fritos loaded with homemade meat or veggie chili-and Ruffles with onion dip ($3). If plebeian comfort grub contrasts nearby Turkish tapas and Thai, that's the point:
"We're trying to be a good neighborhood bar," says Hunt. "And in Williamsburg, that's a niche that needs to be filled."
Unlike bygone Kokie's, where no-necked bouncers demanded a password before unbolting the door, or the Antique, which felt like a refuge for septuagenarians glugging gimlets, the Levee is a fresh breath of a honey-dipped howdy. Once inside, cement yourself at the handsome polished bar and select a stellar beer: Stone India Pale Ale ($5) and New Jersey's Heavyweight Lunacy ($5) anchor drafts, while bottles include Texas' Lone Star ($4), Delirium Tremens ($6) and the awesomely named Abita Turbo Dog ($5). I adore the hopped-up Stone, though Hunt informs me it may be replaced by Red Hook's estimable Sixpoint Craft Ales' IPA.
If five-buck pints are pricey, pay two dollars and fish from the ice-filled "mystery beer bucket." You may hook a Sierra Nevada or a Coors Light, but "the real mystery is knowing when we're offering the bucket," Hunt says. Self-destructives may ante up for the $4 "Sportsman"-PBR paired with surprisingly smooth Evan Williams whiskey; the stomach lining stays un-ulcerated, the body warm and relaxed.
With a cheerful glow, you'll want to retreat to the rear room (perhaps grabbing a board game) and marvel: Where once sat an improvised snorting closet and gaudy baubles rests comfy couches, a pinball machine and sun-washed windows. From the speakers slip Doug Martsch, De La Soul and Dinosaur Jr.
Too clean to be a dive, too lived in to be a lounge, Levee treads the local's tricky water: It lacks sufficient gimmick to draw outer-'hood drinkers, yet this is its allure. "If I can get everyone within four blocks," Hunt says, "then I have a successful business."