Room 18

18 Spring St. (btw Elizabeth & Mott)

New York, NY 10012
(212) 219-0942

Bathroom situation - oof. One single, solitary unit in the back that caters to both Adam & Eve (which, btw, if they had two sons, how did the whole rest of the human race come from just them? Commenters, help us out here). For a space as large as this, in a neighborhood that gets as crowded as that and attracts a clientele as drunk as the third, this is an egregious oversight. Our advice: if you happen to find yourself here and you start feeling that familiar tingling sensation, just go somewhere else.
Takes credit cards? - yes, and with no discernible minimum, which is a pleasant throwback nostalgia good ol' days why isn't the Captain America movie coming out on July 4th?
Crowded on weekends? - Visceralist's first/last Room 18 experience was on a recent Friday evening. It was well after happy hour (happier hour?) and, hand to heart, hand on the Bible, all I have in this world is my word & my balls: it was pretty crowded. Enough has been said!
Seating - considering how many people they pack in here, the seating options are cantankerously limited. Flibbity-jibbet!
Neighborhood - if it can be said that SoHo has an edgy part, then Visceralist is gonna go ahead and say that Room 18 in the edgy part of SoHo. Not edgy to the point where you'd want to "tool-up" with the "biscuit" and be ready for some potential "ratchet-time" just in case it "goes down," but you might want to just double check that your wallet's actually still in your back pocket every now and then.
Pretentious/assholes - though Room 18 is the kind of nondescript SoHo hangout spot that typically does attract its fair share of Sean Parker wannabes, Visceralist didn't find anything worth fretting over.
Cost of Stella - now! Now we'll tell you why we've so far been so salty about Room 18. There's really no other way to put it other than to just come right out and blurt it right on out: cans of Tecate are 6 "Samuel L. Jackson" dollars! Each! So the first thing Visceralist did upon hearing that the two cans we just asked for would run us $12 - that is, after the smelling salts took effect and we freshened up in the restroom (after waiting in line for 10 minutes) - was to launch into a lecture that began "Where do you get off?!" And that's exactly what we did. Wait, no, that's not what we did. We paid for it with a credit card and a smiled while doing it. Fuck Our Lives.
What time people start showing up - Visceralist got there 12ish the other night and it was already gilled to the packs. Ugh, $6 for a fucking Tecate! 6! And we ain't talking Blossom's friend! Even Blossom's friend Six would know better than to charge that much for a can of that particular brand of micturition. And she was dumb enough to have a crush on Joey Whoa! And he was dumb enough to put out that terrible single that helped his album go quadruple platinum! The fuck??!
Bartender efficiency - Visceralist has never worked as a bartender, but we imagine that when it gets crowded at a place like this, from their point of view it must look like E. Honda's "100-hands" special move, with each hand annoyingly clutching a $20. Commenters, is this accurate?
Official Website - Google & Yelp say that they have room18ny.com, but they either forgot to renew their domain recently, or forgot to not be idiots, cuz their site is currently one big piece of spamshit.
Food? How late - they apparently have some nibbles earlier in the evening, but the Yelpster community says that they're nothing to resign from US Congress over.
TVs? What's on - no NBA for like the next 4 months, so no need to have a TV, we suppose.
Guy:girl ratio - airtight.
Toys - 6 fucking dollars...ssmh (the first "s" is for "still").
Age of clientele - well, it's SoHo, so you know it's all about 30 year-olds and the 50 year-olds that tolerate them.
Space for dancing? - if they persist in charging $6 for cans of Tecate, then the only dancing that Visceralist is interested in is the "Ottoman hump" dance that we'll be doing on Room 18's grave when they finally go under.
Music medium, style & volume - why isn't there a foursquare for music?
Specials or most popular drink - if they even have Stella here, it's probably like $22 a bottle or something. Fuck's sake...

Video: The Weeknd "The Birds (Part 1)"

"Thursday" Mixtape (allegedly) coming soon.

Larry Lawrence

295 Grand St. (btw Roebling & Havemayer)

Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 218-7866

Bathroom situation - 2 single-person stalls (aren't they the best?!) in the back. Visceralist makes a concerted effort to take a bathroom photo for each review, and we likely did at Larry Lawrence the last time we were here. However! Our iPhone is so loaded up with bathroom shots at this point that it's sometimes hard to remember which is which. Commenters, help us out with this one.
Takes credit cards? - you know that thing where you start a tab (oh, yeah they do take credit cards here, btw) and then you get another drink and the bartender is like "What's your name?" But it's really loud and you have a weird name? Pro tip! Pull out your iPhone and write your last name out in all caps in Notes then just show it to them. We had great success with this recently, you guys!
Crowded on weekends? - yeah, but there's so much damn surface area that it's never really a thing, like.
Seating - 10 or 11 stools at the bar and a few booths that look like they were hewn from some hellafied slabs of oak.
Neighborhood - the part of Wburg that no one really talks about, but has some of the most hellafied restaurants and bars. How is Bushwick getting more love than LoMidBurg, you guys?
Pretentious/assholes - hmmmm...hard to say, you guys. Someone did roll up on us and say "You'd be cuter with more bangs" but we weren't totally sure if that really counted as a neg, so we didn't bother fucking.
Cost of Stella - 6 foot, 7 foot. Anyone watching Wayne's unplugged tomorrow, btw? We don't have cable here at Visceralist HQ, so commenters, help us out again.
What time people start showing up - 11 in the post.
Bartender efficiency - Visceralist was at a bar recently where we started a tab and when we finally went to Hancock that bitch there was an 18% gratuity already included. Now, this wasn't in NYC, but still. And then! there was a line for yet another tip. Wildly inappropriate. So we signed it "Visceralist don't go for the okey doke."
Official Website - here. The "Events" section lets us know that they're open on Thanksgiving at 10pm, but hey...
Food? How late - Walter and Rye are both within a block of LL, so go there for fud.
TVs? What's on - apparently Oprah's highest-rated episode was one from 1993 that was about guys who date older women. But that was before the net-based stratification of entertainment ooptions, so what the hell else were people supposed to do?
Guy:girl ratio - gentlemen, it's summer in NYC! You know what that's about. You know...#prurience
Toys - there's an outdoor area that you have to walk up some damn stairs to get to. It's where people go to smoke light cigarettes and drink diet Coke and listen to Vampire Weekend as part of a healthier lifestyle.
Age of clientele - dirty thirties.
Space for dancing? - how does one dance to LCD Soundsystem, exactly? Not being facetious, like really, how does it work? We're sort of being facetious.
Music medium, style & volume - lots of Vampire Weekend and LCD Soundsystem.
Specials or most popular drink - remember this? "Um, excuse me, I ordered a Zima, not emphysema."

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