Rover, Rover, Come on Over
In Astoria, we find the four-leaf Irish gem.
Every blue moon, nostalgia's gravitational pull drags me to a land I disdain more than clove cigarettes: Astoria. This was my New York City beachhead, a neighborhood that embraced me into its diminishing, smothering Greek bosom. In my three years' residence, Astoria felt isolationist. Physically and geographically, it was cut off from Brooklyn and Manhattan and, consequently, bars of merit. Sure, the Beer Garden was good for grilled sausage and cold Spaten, but unless I was a local fond of Marlboro Reds, hair gel and Euro pop, solid saloons were as rare as visitors willing to travel to Queens.
Unlike Williamsburg, with its tidal flow of Manhattan hip, Astoria's a bedroom community as cool as boiling water. It's filled with families and college graduates insecurely boosterish about their neighborhood, as I once was. Don't get me wrong; gentrification dust certainly coats the low-rise storefronts, reborn as Thai dives or French bistros. To me it's a superficial reinvention, a librarian wearing peekaboo panties and gyrating on a greasy pole. A new look, for sure, but she's still Dewey Decimal dowdy.
Imbibing-wise, but one local option existed, located outside my front door: the Irish Rover. While shamrock bars dot New York City like freckles, few feature the Rover's palsy-walsy vibe. Rampant bonhomie, as you'll soon see, is why I've returned to Astoria on a random weekday night. The instant I enter the drinkery-after a two-year-plus absence-the splinter-thin bartender greets me, in a light brogue, with, "What can I get for you, my friend?"
Four-dollar drafts include Pilsner Urquell, Erdinger Hefe-Weizen and Brooklyn Lager. Mixed drinks, served in grandpa-appropriate goblets, are similarly suitable: four bucks for stiff whiskeys like Jameson. Per usual, I request a black-and-tan, that marriage between Guinness and Bass that cuts inky richness with fizzy effervescence, like water in a pudding-thick stew. The mixture takes several minutes to pour. The bartender lets the Irish stout settle, a step often bypassed. When the black-and-tan arrives, it's precision: Guinness floats on top like an oil slick.
The Rover's décor, though scarcely slick-cool like the sprawling cafes lining nearby 30th Avenue, is well-worn and welcoming: A long, wooden bar leads to an open expanse. It's outfitted with dart boards, countless televisions broadcasting Irish soccer and ball-based sports fare and a crowd of old women, construction workers and pretty young girls-a fair Astoria cross-section. Walls are decorated with pictures of the Irish Rover softball team, as well as the Irish Charles Bukowski: toothless troubadour Shane MacGowan.
MacGowan has-and fellow foot-stompers like Lancaster County Prison and the Blind Pharaohs still do-graced the Rover, where weekend bands bring raucous revelry. At the Rover, however, music-especially the U2- and Green Day?heavy Internet jukebox-takes a back seat to the spirit of the singer's Superman consumption. MacGowan's notorious for vomiting onstage and staying on note, despite his ability to enunciate consonants reduced to "unggggggggghhhhh." That encapsulates my mental state after breezing into this four-leaf gem.
An explanation for decreased brain function is simple: After ordering your second drink, the bartender will say, "You got another one coming to you after this one." No matter who poured your potable, each bartender has seersayer-like skill to tabulate your drink total. Now comes the carrot: When drink two runs dry, the bartender wordlessly fills a fresh glass with your preferred potion. "Good luck," he'll say, carefully placing it on a stiff coaster like a newborn in a crib. Every third round, buybacks begin anew. It's a simple equation for destruction.
After your second beer, you really want the third. And after guzzling five, that sixth seems as right as rain. Three, six, nine, twelve; multiplication tables add up to a MacGowan-like blackout. My saving grace from alchol-induced shame was my apartment across the street. It was a quick stumble, trip and crawl upstairs and into bed.
Though my head hated me after every Rover evening, my heart sang the corner bar's accolades. Here's a saloon where customers are trasured. Everyone's a regular and a buyback is a right, not an honor earned after wearing your asscheek into a stool. Bars like the Rover are a scarce breed, a bald eagle in a city full of pigeons. Young or old, a local or visitor, a ten-dollar bill earns you king-like treatment. Two ten-dollar bills earn you something even more special: You'll forget you're in Astoria.n
Irish Rover, 37-18 28th Ave. (at 38th St.), 718-278-9372