Just came across news on this place called Rusty Knot that’s going to be opening soon in the West Village and get this — it’s billing itself as a “velvet rope nautical themed dive bar.” Huh? Does anybody have any idea what that means or do you have to speak douchebagese to understand? I’m guessing that what Ken Friedman, the “brains” behind this operation, means is that Rusty Knot will be like Montero’s only filled overpaid white investment bankers rather than the real life working people who go to actual dive bars rather than preening, contrived facsimiles.

Obviously, the very definition of a dive bar precludes a velvet rope from being referenced unless it’s referring to how a patron killed another while arguing over who was supposed to pay for the shots of Early Times. Since most of Manhattan has become an urban theme park for the moneyed why not add a “dive” to the attractions?

In an interview with The Diners Journal, a Times blog about eating and drinking, Friedman — by the way, are all dudes with the last name Friedman self-important assholes or is just this guy and Tom from The Times? — makes it clear that he’s never actually been in a real, live dive bar when he says, “We want people to have great dive-bar food. We want them to say, ‘This is the best food I’ve ever had in a dive bar.’”

I don’t know where this clueless fuck does his drinking but someone should have told him 99% of dives don’t serve food for the simple reason that even the most desperate of boozehounds wouldn’t eat the grub at a place like Jackie’s 5th Amendment, Soccer Tavern, or Club 773 to name a few Brooklyn dives that I frequent. Those that do serve food, like Rudy’s or The Patriot are turning out hot dogs and sliders, which are meant to merely absorb enough liquor so that one can drink even more.

Apparently, Friedman thinks that the size of the food he’ serving and the way it’s presented are what qualifies Rusty Knot to be termed a dive since he also says, “(the food) It’ll be small things that you can eat in one hand while holding a drink in the other.” How divey! How revolutionary! How fucking challenging for the obnoxious trend-chasing set that will comprise 100% of Rusty Knot’s customers! Holding a drink in one hand while holding food in the other? Wow! How fucking quaint! It’s just like they’re doing at Mars Bar.
Incredibly enough, Friedman makes even more of an ass of himself when he added, “that much of the food would be served in plastic baskets.” Yippee! What could be diveier than that?

I don’t know Ken Friedman and I don’t know anybody that’s eaten at his over-hyped “gastro pub” Spotted Pig but I do know that Rusty Knot has as much in common with a real dive as White Castle does with Per Se. That being said, I don’t mind educating Mr. Friedman on what a dive bar actually is.

Here’s the deal. If someone out there knows Ken Friedman, let him know that I’ll be happy to treat him to a night of boozing it up at several of Brooklyn’s best dives like Timboos, Smith’s, Smolen, Rainbow Café, the Green Isle, and even Montero’s so he can see that real dives don’t have velvet ropes nor do they serve food to patrons who get off on the novelty of eating out of plastic baskets.

The web is crawling with websites that tell you where you should drink in New York City and we think that’s fine. Those sites are all nice and, truthfully, some of them are so informative that I can sometimes be found scanning them to find new places to imbibe. Sometimes, I even like the watering holes I find on My Open Bar, Free NYC, Citysearch, Murph Guide, etc., enough to visit more than once but these sites all have a certain Manhattan and gentrified Brooklyn and Queens slant to them, which makes sense since that’s where most people that visit said sites want to drink. We do things differently here, to an extent at least.

While we will make visits and post on “dives” in certain Manhattan and gentrified BK and QB hoods, we’re going to try to uncover those diamonds in the rough that chicks who think their Samantha from Sex and The City and overpaid college-after-college knuckleheads would never even dare set foot in. Alcohol’s our hobby and our precarious employment situation makes it imperative that we indulge that hobby as cheaply as possible.

So, yeah. We’re gonna talk about Beauty Bar, which happens to be a pretty cool spot, even if it’s solidly in the “faux dive” category but we’re also gonna blaze a liquor-laden trail through some New York City neighborhoods nobody thinks to drink in. And to be honest, I’m not even sure what we’re gonna find. I just hope it’s as much fun and compelling for us as it is for you.

Maspeth here we come! Look the fuck out…