(Photo: Lauren Carol Smith)
What do you get when you combine an “old man bar” aesthetic, a big backyard and a free jukebox filled with “awesome shit”?
That would be 3 Diamond Door – Bushwick’s latest boozing destination from Mike Ireland of Pearl’s Social & Billy Club and partners Gabriel Check and Myles Atherton from Oak & Iron. She opened last night.
Ireland told Bedford + Bowery that the new drinking den at 211 Knickerbocker Avenue – previously a Kennedy Fried Chicken & Pizza – was conceived as each of the partners’ dream bar, which translates to a place where an old man would wanna go to quaff a cold one. “You’re not gonna see a guy in a bow tie that makes a cocktail in eight minutes” here, Ireland promises.
(Photo: Lauren Carol Smith)
But you will find a large backyard for guzzling classic cocktails (made in only two minutes), a selection of 15 draft beers (ranging from Coors and Budweiser to niche and local brews for “beer nerds”), Prosecco on tap, a self-serve water spigot that partner Gabriel Check jerry-rigged from “an old cigarette dispenser from the ’60s,” and that free jukebox, stocked with tunes to match the neighborhood’s “eclectic tastes” — or, anything from Minor Threat to Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn to Nirvana.
Aesthetically, Ireland says the 1,200-square-foot space looks like the “1920s refurbished in the ’50s,” a hybrid of Art Deco and old Americana that, importantly, he emphasizes, steers clear of intimidating.
(Photo: Lauren Carol Smith)
“It’s gonna be a place for good times,” Ireland summarized. “Knickerbocker needs a good communal spot where everyone is welcome to go and to not feel judged or scared. This is gonna be a really chill spot.”
3 Diamond Door (there really are 3 Diamonds on the door!), 211 Knickerbocker Ave., nr. Troutman St.; (718) 576-6136. Open from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 4 a.m. on weekends.
(Photo: Lauren Carol Smith)