Rudy's Bar and Grill

Rudy's pig mascot, the Baron, has stood vigil for about twenty years, and was stolen only twice before the bar bolted him down¹. Hell's Kitchen rumor, which the bar is happy to repeat, has the place starting out as a speakeasy in 1919 frequented by Al Capone¹. Its own history is surer of the next part: Rudy's got one of New York's first liquor licenses when Prohibition ended in 1933¹.

The original wood door is carved down the center with the name of the first owners, the Rudy family¹. According to Jack, a former Merchant Marine who drank there from the 1940s and bought the bar in 1982, Helen Rudy kept two big German Shepherds to mind the door¹. The bar also says Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner came in to keep a low profile before going public in the late '40s, and that it's the Rudy's of Steely Dan's "Black Cow": "I saw you at Rudy's and you were very high"¹. The red neon sign may be the original, since it shows up in a 1940 photo².

In 1996 Rolling Stone named its jazz and blues jukebox the best in the city, and in 2003 Drinking Liberally, a club for left-leaning people who meet to drink and talk politics, was founded there¹. Our old review came for the free hot dogs, three-dollar pints of Rudy's Red (Michelob Red, really), banquettes upholstered mostly in duct tape and a huge garden. A couple of years before that review, the bar had given in to the digital age with a flatscreen TV, where no TV had ever been³.

Rudy's was closed for more than 16 months before reopening in August 2021, and general manager Danny DePamphilis used the time to renovate the ceilings and, yes, the bathrooms, and to put in air filtration⁴. It's still at 627 Ninth Avenue, open 8am to 4am Monday through Saturday, with fifteen beers on tap and a free hot dog with every drink⁵.