As the famous Shakespeare quote goes, “What’s in a name? That which we call a dive bar, by any other name would still doth offer $6 beer/shot specials.” Despite our sometimes delicate sensibilities over here at Brokelyn, we’re not too discerning when it comes to the definition of a “dive bar.” Usually a bit grungy, always a bit cheap, never a bit boring, a good dive bar is akin to 4am refrigerator-raid nachos: a solid option, especially if you’re not getting laid.
But a new Bushwick bar is challenging everything our ravaged intestines have loved and feared about the divey-est of dives: the food. DNAinfo reports that Alphaville (140 Wilson Avenue) opened last week with the usual suspects on hand: PBR tallboys, shitty well liquor, and…warm purple carrots? Yeah, okay.
The owners of Alphaville, bless their healthy hearts, are on a mission to provide non-artery clogging grub to the unwashed, boozed-up masses. Their ruffage-centric menu features Thai beet soup, roasted broccoli and the aforementioned warm purple carrots, and a kale and sesame salad. Though the good news is that Alphaville lives up to at least one of the pillars of the dive bar code, which is that all menu items are priced below $10, and they carry on the time-honored Brooklyn tradition of $6 beer/shot specials anytime, every day.
But come on…isn’t the whole point of going to a seedy booze palace that you’re trying to retroactively destroy all of the hard work you just put into your Bikram yoga class? No one prepares for a night of copious drinking by loading up on stuff you can buy at your local farmer’s market. There’s a reason dive bars are so wrong that they’re right, and part of the experience is that at some point in the night you’re probably going to pass out face-first in a pile of melted synthetic cheese and Frito’s. It is, after all, the American way.
We guess only time will tell how Alphaville weathers in a dive culture based around infinite rounds of cheese balls in between giant gulps of liver-wrecking fun water. How long do you think before someone vomits technicolor leafy greens all over a bar stool? We’ll give it til Saturday.