Marshall Stack

66 Rivington St (NW corner of Allen)

New York, NY 10002
(212) 228-4667

Bathroom situation - three in the back, then hang a left. One for ladies, one for gentlemen, one for the lonely souls. The walls in the men's room are wallpapered with images of the particular electrical guitar amplifier advertised in the title of this post (this is presumably the case in the women's as well...commenters, c'est vrai?). Confusingly, this interior design decision belies the wannabe-upscale vibe that the rest of the bar clearly hopes to engender. C'est meh.
Takes credit cards? - Yelp says they do, but in point of fact, they do not do.
Crowded on weekends? - Visceralist doesn't like to preach or use one-syllable words when there exists a pretentious 4-syllable synonym (shouts out to "proselytize"), but it seems apparent that there still exists an "A Sound of Thunder"-esqe niche/market for a bar that can provide the crowd that looks down on Banana Republic but still can't afford Etiquita Negra to feel cool w/o actually having to put in any effort.
Seating - rickety on purpose. They have the standard contingent of stools at the bar, but the tables are like seriously time-warp-teleported from an episode of Mad Men. Re-purposed elementary school desks from 1960's Ossining is what we're getting at. For the win?
Neighborhood - down the street from a barber-shop called Well Connected (who's hours are yeah - yup, Mon - Thurish). But across the other street from The Reed Space, which has some of the best t-shirts this side of triflin-ass alife.
Pretentious/assholes - Appropos of nothing, Visceralist once randomly struck up a conversation here with a curly-haired friend of a friend who for some reason divulged that, though her Banana Republic bf assumed she was a legal secretary at some Wall St. firm, she was actually a "happy ending" masseuse at a Wall St. massage "parlor." She specified that services offered included both hjs & bjs. Despite being college-educated, she justified this by noting that "Monica was just the only one that got caught..." Two questions popped into Visceralist's mind at this point: (a) did she require condoms for the bjs? and (b) how much for a bj w/o a condom? The only response Visceralist could muster in real life, however, was the unfortunately reductive, "God damn...your world is a muthafucka."
Cost of Stella - if you have to ask...
What time people start showing up - from the outside looking in, this spot affects a certain affability in that folks breeze in and out throughout the afternoon most days. HOWEVER. Is it not in fact the case that most folk who grin and get all touchy-feelie at the site of a rack of khaki-colored whatever do not have the best fashionably-late-dar?
Bartender efficiency - don't quote Visceralist on this, but we swear we once saw a bartender in a sweater-vest and tie...all un-ironically like it was all good! Foreheads were be-slapped.
Official Website - the results from a Google search of "Marshall Stack NYC" indicates that they do have a site, but a left-click on the top link puts paid to that boshit.
Food? How late - yes, but gourmand's beware, the "kitchen" consists of whatever a step or two up from a college dorm hot-plate & mini-fridge would be. There's a bodega across the street, so for once just pretend like your Sopranos-loving ass has actually seen The Wire and sneak in some Utz Crab chips.
TVs? What's on - no, but they have candles on some of the tables so study up on the Wikipedia page for shadow puppets before setting out.
Guy:girl ratio - for some reason women tend to think this place isn't the Febreeze'd-up dive bar it really is, and are thus comfortable enough with it to post pics on their Facebook page of Sarah's newly-single "His Loss '09" girl's-nite-out held here.
Toys - a favorite of Visceralist's is listing all the myriad reasons why this place shouldn't be named after an awesome rock amp.
Age of clientele - Visceralist doesn't like to throw around the term "Fuddy Duddy" with abandon, but really...
Space for dancing? - if you've even heard of the movie Black Dynamite (2nd best comedy movie of 2009, btw...In the Loop is the 1st), your dance moves are prolly too good for this place and will likely be misunderstood and feared.
ID Check Procedure - there's an SVA dorm 2 blocks away from Marshall Stack and Visceralist is NOT encouraging them to show up here even though they don't usually have a bouncer.
Music medium, style & volume - the sample from Ghostface Killa's "Cherchez La Ghost" that goes "Tommy Mottola..." is from a band (name not important) who premised their music style as being a pure American style that they believed would've naturally evolved over the 60's-70's had the British Invasion never happened. I know, your first thought is like, "For what?!" And really their only valuable contribution to the music biz is the Ghostface song. Visceralist's point is that, if these artists are still alive, they wouldn't be unhappy with the music here. Meanwhile, Chris Martin thinks The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" is the best song ever written.
Specials or most popular drink - they have 20 beers on tap + another 30ish bottles, which almost certainly outshines any other bar in a 3-block radius, so if you like it then you better put a ring on it.
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