* Bushwick Country Club
618 Grand St. Brooklyn, NY 11211
(Cross Street: Between Leonard Street and Lorimer Street)
PHONE: 718.388.2114
HOURS: Mon-Fri 5pm-4am, Sat-Sun 4pm-4am
CARDS: Visa & MasterCard
GAMES: Makeshift miniature golf
HAPPY HOUR: During the daily happy hour (until 8pm), it's buy one, get one free on pitchers. Pitchers of beer, from PBR to Red Tail, run $15 to $17.
EVENTS: Click here
DIRECTIONS: Take the Metropolitan exit and walk 4 blocks down Lorimar to Grand Street, make a left on Grand Street and we're across the street on the corner of Grand and Leonard.
MAP: Click Here
SUBWAY: L to Lorimer, G to Metropolitan
WEBSITE:: www.bushwickcountryclub.com
WE SAY: A beautiful addition to the new Grand Avenue bar scene. The restored oak bar will make you feel like you should wear a smoking jacket. The tiny makeshift miniature golf course in the backyard will make you wish you had worn your Seersucker. Several beers are on tap and a full liquor bar is available. Definitely worth a visit.
PBR adorned miniature golf windmill
From CitySearch: Bushwick Country Club ups the ante on Grand Street's burgeoning bar scene. A mellow neighborhood crowd mixes in the kitschy bar, with shabby chandeliers, a photo booth and ironically hip action figures and pop culture lunchboxes. In the back yard, pickup games of mini-golf are played for free on a DIY course, with obstacles such as a windmill made of flattened PBR cans and a rudimentary hobo mannequin. BCC carries a range of lowbrow and high-quality beers, wines, bourbons and tequilas guaranteed to improve the putt. Try Delirium: a full-bodied Belgian beer with nine percent alcohol by volume, available for only $6, a relative bargain. Members of the Country Club get that fuzzy feeling of fitting in, with additional perks such as special discounts. The jukebox keeps it all going with everything from Men Without Hats to the Descendants.
[From NYPress] Like peanut butter and jelly, like cops moonlighting as Mafia hit men, some things go great together. To this list let's add miniature golf and beer, Williamsburg's newest get-you-in-the-door gimmick.The lowbrow combo is trafficked at Bushwick Country Club, the latest entry on Grand Street's gritty booze row. In the last several years, this sorta-Williamsburg stretch of bodegas and taquerias has welcomed Art Land, Stain and Grand Central. For locals, Bedford Avenue bar-hopping is as superfluous as a third nipple. Detractors may say the same about drunken miniature golf. Yet in a bar scene embracing bocce ball, mini-golf is no more asinine.
So hopes John Roberts, who bet his life savings on the putter's power. Last August, the actor and opera librettist signed a lease on a former florist shop with a backyard the size of a studio apartment. As mini-golf took form, "I was busier than a one-legged man in a Georgia butt-kicking contest," Roberts says. Predictably, money bled and patience frayed like a thrift-store sweater.
Over the next 10 months, the spry, bright-eyed Roberts dropped 20 pounds, wasting into a 120-pound ruin. His sister in Florida was aghast. "John," she said, sending him some money, "eat a hamburger." With much-needed capital, he completed the CC in mid-June, unleashing its motto: "It's craptacular," Roberts says proudly. "Klass with a capital K."
Uh-huh. The gray tin ceiling and brick walls are nicely refurbished, lending an airy, skuzzy-classy feel. Then the kitsch hits: Above CC's mirrored bar sit a Smurf, Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and Hulk Hogan lunchbox. They're joined by a bowling trophy, Elvis tapestry and wobbly chandelier. A liquor glass large enough to transport a newborn has a sign reading, "The $40 martini�for lushes only."
This lush prefers beer: Dentergens and Red Tail Ale (both $5) are tempting, as is the puzzling "19th Hole." "I'm not quite sure what it is," the iPod-playing bartender says, "but it looks like Budweiser and costs $4." Hardly reassuring, so I snag a three-dollar New Amsterdam Amber poured from a tap shaped like the Empire State Building. Several men in Chucks and women with shoulder tattoos wisely follow suit.
"Sweet," says one when informed of the buy-one, get-one-free happy hour (until 8). I concur: A brew for a de facto buck-fifty is scarcer than a rent-controlled apartment. Cradling my beer, I shuffle past dusty golf clubs and a three-dollar photo booth. It's ideal for R-rated pics, but licentiousness must wait. For now, while summer light shines, I'm propelled outside for mini-golf as envisioned by a self-described MacGyver disciple.
Roberts graded the six-hole course himself, unearthing ancient bottles (on display above the bar) and hypodermic needles. Fittingly, the Astroturf putting green is the tint of heroin track marks. One hole is defended by a PBR can-covered windmill; another features a Styrofoam dummy in a drunken stupor. Plastic ice cream cones and shields serve as obstacles. The pinnacle: On the final hole, putters must blast a ball into a silver icemaker recreated as a robot. The head is an empty polyurethane can with a painted-on face, while arms are silver coils. Shortly, the robot will be decorated with smokes and bottles of booze.
"Most robots are ornery drunks," Roberts says, matter-of-factly.
I play several rounds of golf by sunlight, then several rounds by the Christmas lights surrounding the course. It looks pre-school simple, but beer has stolen, not steeled, my nerves: After flubbing the robot-belly shot, I score a 20.
"Par should be, oh, about 10," Roberts says.
Bullshit.
"Well, that might be Tiger Woods�ing it a bit," he admits. That's right. Better yet are plans for free weekend weenies and mini-golf tournaments. "I already have my referee jersey," Roberts says. The party's name? Links and Links. "Get it?" he asks.
I happily say I do. Sure, Bushwick Country Club is as polished as a cubic zirconia wedding ring, but that's the charm. Who cares if the bathroom door is accordion plastic? Who cares that the backyard contains rusty steel girders reaching heavenward like God's tetanus goalposts? Like a loyal boyfriend with a finger-sniffing fixation, the positives outweigh the flaws. Brooklyn has miniature golf, and that's reason enough to drink.
Comments
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Posted by: dotarull | October 5, 2007 04:19 PM
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Posted by: dotarull | October 5, 2007 04:19 PM
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Posted by: dotarull | October 5, 2007 04:18 PM
Posted by: hunter | September 21, 2007 01:53 PM
Posted by: hunter | September 21, 2007 01:53 PM
This bar is ALL 'tude. It was cool when it first opened, but then they hired some scabby bartenders. Yeah, yeah, you work a bar on the crappy side of Williamsburg - we're all really impressed. (And I do not consider stale Key Food brand cheesepuffs "food".)
Posted by: Terminator | August 15, 2007 08:53 PM
the peeps at the bushwick are absolute dolls...no 'tude like in other bars in the hood. more likely that they'll give you quarters for the jukebox and offer you free food.
Posted by: miss messaround | July 2, 2006 02:18 AM
This is the greatest bar in BROOKLYN! Monday nights are spectacular and the bartender Thomas is absolutely divine
Posted by: hot girl | November 16, 2005 06:54 PM