A Williamsburg Tour

It is not often that I want to travel out to the neighborhood to the north. I don't know if anyone can even mention Billyburg these days without someone rolling their eyes. But, I was meeting a friend and, to be honest, I often have a lot of fun out there. So I did my research, created a google map of potential pit stops and G-Trained it up at around 7:30 on Friday evening. Here's what I found:

BARCADE: My friend Reena has told me about this place and the concept seems fun: great craft beers on tap, video game stations from the 80s lining the walls, big, open space. I did not experience what the late night scene might be at this place, but the late evening crowd was a good mix of people varying in age and level of hipsterness. Friendly, huge, airy Williamsburgy space. I did not play any video games but did enjoy the nostalgia their mere presence evoked.

We then took a lenghty walk in the dusky sky to FULL CIRCLE, a skeeball themed bar. This was definitely the best place of the night. The music was superb... I remember hearing a few deep Talking Heads cuts and an alternate take of "Sweet Jane" on the playlist. When you walk to the back of the bar there are three skeeball stations and a sort of stadium seating setup behind them where people sit, watch, and cheer on the players. Contrary to what I had imagined, there was no lengthy list hanging on the wall to sign up or flocks of skeeball nuts hovering around with special skeeball gloves and personal sets of skeeballs. In fact, we were able to easily play as many games as we wanted. And the strangers in the bar were all very friendly.  I guess I'm the asshole with the pretensions. By the way, I am proud that I was able to score a 360 after just a few tries. Not bad for never playing.

The next stop was BERRY PARK,  a huge oasis of a place with a welcoming roof deck on top. The place was filled with good looking young people doing their thing. Again, not pretentious. Just chill. Walking onto the rooftop I had a flashback to some of the places we went to in Portland, OR last year. Although I was very hungry at this point, I did not order from their fancy pants menu. I waited instead for street pizza.

This is important. I tried a slice from a pizza joint on Bedford and N 9th St. It comes up before the massive throng of people at the L stop a few blocks away. While the slice was slightly thicker than I generally prefer, the taste was excellent. I remember thinking that this place needed to step up its game because clearly it's going to miss out to the places nearer the subway. So, I just had to compare. I stopped in to get a slice at the place right at N6th street. And guess what? I couldn't even finish it. Horrible. And guess what else? The place was packed. Hmmm...