What is it? Way before SoHo was SoHo, this corner five-story brick building was a “grocery,” with primary-source documents indicating that much liquor was consumed on-site in places so designated. Fanelli’s existence as a place to drink from 1847 officially makes it the second-oldest bar continuously serving in the same location in all of NYC. You can see the original paperwork posted on the wall inside.
Why we love it: It’s a mite cramped these days what with all who’ve moved into the neighborhood. But if you catch it on a night when it isn’t choked, it’s a phenomenal place to while some time away over drinks and food. It’s stood right where it is, bearing witness to one of the craziest tales of gentrification in the city: from factories to artists’ frontier to galleries to flagship retail to whatever the hell it is now—mostly a backdrop for entitled social media accounts.
Time Out tip: Your best bet is a weekday afternoon or evening. If you wade through the crowd up front, you can grab a table in the back room.
Address: 94 Prince St, New York, NY 10012
Opening hours: Daily 11am–late
Expect to pay: ~$9–$12/beer; ~$10–$12/cocktails; ~$12–$20/glass of wine, ~$52–$95/bottle of wine. ~$10–$20/small plates, ~$12–$48/mains
One of New York City’s most enduring features is that almost nothing in it endures; the place is constantly undergoing change. Buildings are razed and reconstructed, streets are renamed and rerouted, neighborhoods’ identities are redefined and reinvented. That’s why it’s so special when a bar (of all things!) survives. The new and shiny may get a lot of attention, but there are places in this city that have persisted in the face of ever-present churn and seemingly-endless upheaval and they, too deserve a shout. These places are stalwarts, bits of history with fun baked in. It’s where your immigrant ancestors may very well have tied one on, where historical figures may have gotten sloppy, where the movements that shaped our country found liquid courage.
RECOMMENDED: The best bars in NYC: your definitive drinking guide
Below is a list of some of New York City’s oldest bars. Is it an exhaustive list? Nah. Are they some of the best bars? Not necessarily. Do they have a kind of character you can’t possibly manufacture? Absolutely. So if you fancy yourself a New Yorker or aspire to call yourself one someday, we daresay you can’t claim the title until you’ve heard last call at one of these places.
October 20, 2025: We’ve swapped a few places with more exposure for a couple that are indeed old and deserve a little more attention e.g. Keen’s for Julius’. It’s also worth noting that the places below aren’t in order of age or founding and that some of the finer historical details are fuzzy–by the time they started keeping records of such things, the paperwork for places that served alcohol on premises often refer to ‘inn’ or ‘grocery.’ Go figure. Finally, while most of these places listed are well-preserved, some have undergone renovation and renewal, drawing the place’s listed age into some question (Fraunces); generally speaking, unless there’s serious controversy, we’ve chosen to take places at their word.
