It’s hard to find, they don’t open their doors till 8pm and you’ll need a pair of sure feet to get down the deliberately rusted stairs without an incident. Once you get down to the bar, you’ll find yourself in a sort of luxe Lone Star steakhouse. There’s a free Jack Daniel’s-branded pool table, a jukebox that has no labels (it’s all about surprises here) with a seemingly endless supply of Biggie Smalls and P Diddy and there’s an old Street Fighter arcade game in the corner.
The booths are so dark one fellow drinker feels duty-bound to mention that “you could probably have sex in there and no one would know.” You probably could, but we’re not encouraging you to try. Instead, busy your hands with a giant can of PBR – they’re big on the American beer here, and also stock bottles of Bud. Of course, not everyone’s tastes run towards mid-strength hipster suds. If you’re firmly pitched in the not-another-urban-lumberjack-
Our Daisy Dukes-clad bartender (all the bartenders here are ladies) reckons BRKLYN caters mostly to the hospitality crowd, who come for bourbon and beers after they’ve closed up their own digs for the night (the bar stays open till 3am). Up until recently, the beachside suburb’s been a late-night dead zone, but the addition of BRKLYN is breathing new life into Manly after midnight.