Diplomatic Fanaticism
Park Slope's 200 Fifth. It's like Ellis Island for the sports-fan Diaspora. Vikings rooter? Texans supporter? Chargers cheerer? No problem. Every game is broadcast every Sunday. This makes for a jersey-clad, backward-baseball-hat-wearing melting pot of men and the occasional woman-not so unusual, given that this is Park Slope.
Located on Park Slope's, duh, Fifth Avenue, 200 Fifth has been a pre-gentrification mainstay for nearly two decades. It's also bipolar. Half of 200 Fifth is a bucolic eatery. Sunflowers decorate windows. Brick walls are covered with country-home metal sconces. Sunlight bathes the room. Sports-broadcasting TVs line the walls, sure, but the menu goes beyond buffalo wings: pork chops in roasted-pepper sauce, blackened catfish and penne arugula run about $15. On Sunday, brunch eaters congregate for Eggs Benedict. They're rumpled Park Slope clichés: 30-something husbands and wives wearing their Sunday comfiest, and the occasional family, dad keeping an eye cocked on the game.
The sports bar side pulls a 180. Beer stains the dark wood floor and the air. The ceiling is gun-metal gray. The room's as cavernous and dark as a salt mine. A squadron of televisions sit single file above the bar, while several tv screens the size of third-graders anchor the rear. Their flickering illuminates throngs of sports fans, eyes glued to footballers like a favorite drug. But this is America, and our favorite drug is alcohol.
From domestic swill like Bud and Mich to microbrew goodness like Abita Purple Haze and Victory Hop Devil, 200 Fifth offers more than 40 tap beers. Pints run an average $4 or $5. During the weekdays from 4 pm?7 pm, there's a stellar $3-pint happy hour. Sundays offer three-dollar pints (currently Coors Light, Killian's and Blue Moon). Fuck, there's even a Jägermeister machine. Perhaps the chilled herbal digestif is for weekend nights. Then, dance parties turn 200 Fifth into a meat market. It's a call to arms. And hands. And asses.
200 Fifth excels when it drops its ass-shaking shtick and gussied-up-eatery act and acts like a straight-talking sports bar that's not out to bilk you. Unlike $20-minimum jock havens like Scruffy Duffy's, 200 Fifth charges no minimum. Well, scratch that: If you want to sit at a table with several buddies, there's a $100 minimum. The century mark is easily covered with a couple beers apiece, a fat 10-ounce sirloin burger ($7.50) or three and some spicy Buffalo wings ($10 for a large). Barflies are exempt from the minimum, but it's bad form to buy nothing.
"Hey, can I get you something to drink?" a waitress will pointedly ask, pointing at empty hands. If you've reached your weekend-bender limit, grab a Coke ($2), which you can preciously savor like it's a vintage pinot noir. Now stretch your legs and get ready to stand, for seats are as rare as a 4 a.m. G train. And just as noisy. With fans cheering for six or seven different games, fanatics unleash a constant soundtrack of porno-like grunts and groans: "Go baby!" "Oh, yeah!" "Fuuuuuuuuck!" The cacophony is confusing: Which team did well? Eyes flit across tv screens like a nervous night watchman searching for an intruder.
Such perplexing and constant celebration is what sets 200 Fifth apart. Someone is always ecstatic. Someone is always devastated. But there's hardly ever a plurality of happiness or sadness, which is excellent: Nothing's more life-threatening than rooting for the gladiator in the lion's den. So consider this Park Slope bar the United Nations of football watching: Every stripe and mascot is represented. Sure Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots fans wield muscle, but alongside the contingents of Bengals and Browns boosters, everyone coexists in a harmony that could teach world leaders a lesson.