EVERYTHING I LIKE IN THE WORLD IN ONE OLD BAR

I mentioned the other day that last Thursday I had a couple of beers in New York's Oldest continuously opened bar, McSorley's. It was so wonderful I never wanted to leave. Seriously. I could have sat there for hour after hour, drinking the house beer and eating corned beef sandwiches and it would have been like heaven. When I got there the other day it was perfect. It was around 3:30 in the afternoon, it was a little cold outside and the city had been crowded with holiday season tourists but there weren't many people hanging around outside the bar, that was a very good sign. When I opened the old doors and saw that the bar wasn't crowded I was quite joyous. The old bar had the bright winter sun pouring in on it's ancient sawdust covered wood floors and there was even an empty table right near the old wood stove. I must be dreaming I thought. I went up to the bar without the usual 4 deep jog jam and ordered 4 dark beers from the wise ass bartender. We sat down and I pointed out the points of interest to my wife's cousin, a no good bar having resident of cape cod. We sat for only a few minutes drinking our delicious small draft beers while we warmed up by the fire. It would have been great to stay and stay and stay but my companion isn't a big beer drinker and was starving for Italian food. Those two things don't work so well in Mcsorleys. So although I was in my glory, I had to be a good NYC tour guide and leave. The bar did have an effect on my guest though and after eating our italian food a few blocks away she wanted to go back. We walked back up 7th street and although we'd only been gone about 40 minutes a full line of 25 people stood out on the street waiting to get in. We had missed out window and I was sad.

A few days later I was talking to a friend of mine and I told him, "The next time I go into Manhattan, I'm going to McSorley's around 10:30 or 11:00 am grabbing a table and drinking for the next 12 hours. He said, "I'm coming with you." That's good, I'll need someone to watch the table when I get up to whiz. All others are welcome to join me.