Van Gogh's Radio Lounge

c/o NY Mag

147 Franklin St.
Brooklyn, NY 11222
view map
718.701.4004

Rating: ★ ★ ★
Cards: All Major
Hours: Daily 4pm-4am
Subway: G to Greenpoint Ave.
Food/Menu: No food available
Booze: Full bar
Happy Hour: Van Gogh’s Amber, $3, all times
Citysearch says:

This dive bar, named after the departed painter and the owner’s now-defunct rock band, is the sort of place where $2 cans of PBR are the drink du jour and the day’s sports game flickers on a projector screen. Metal tables decorated with sunflowers line the exposed brick wall, while Polaroids of regulars–a crowd of hipsters and local Joes–dot the opposite orange wall. Anything goes at Wednesday’s open mic and on the weekends’ live music stage.

NY Mag says:

If Van Gogh’s Radio sounds more like a band than a bar, that’s because it was. When owner Tony Petillo’s rock ‘n roll fantasy faded a few years ago, he and his two siblings kept the band name alive by opening up a bar in their native Greenpoint neighborhood to serve all those other people for whom the Bowery’s–and, later, Bedford Avenue’s–siren song of bohemian utopia rang a little bit tinny. Although ubiquitous sunflowers and pumpkin-colored walls give a nod to the mad Dutch post-Impressionist, the giant game of professional poker or The Simpsons usually being projected on the back wall dispels any hint at painterly pretention. Regular guys, low-key recent arrivals and the occasional poet keep it real with cheap drinks, video games, and a jukebox stocked by a man with confident taste in music. The Pearl Jam here is not ironic. Why should it be? The only thing masquerading here is the house beer, Van Gogh’s Ale, a very reasonably priced amber ale known outside the bar as Michelob Red. Open mic night every Wednesday at 9pm.

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