No Idea

Back in the year 2000, a couple weeks after I moved to New York, a friend from college came to visit me. One night we met up with one of her childhood friends, who suggested a place called No Idea. It's on 20th between Broadway and Park Avenue South, right smack dab in the middle of the triangle created by Union Square, Madison Square, and Gramercy Park. I had completely forgotten about the bar until about a year ago when for some reason I started getting monthly emails promoting the bar's name night. For the most part, I think bar websites are more or less useless. But I do check out No Idea's name night calendar to see if there's a name of anybody I know who might be interested in drinking for free (the name for this coming New Year's Eve is "NOFNBODY"). The writer of the website boasts about the bar, which opened in 1992, when the area was a ghost town: "Frankly, we own the neighborhood now. Nothing happens without No Idea's approval." There are several "popular neighborhood destinations" listed, including Elite Models, Republic, Himachi, Gramercy Tavern, etc. But no mention of the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site located right next door.

Needless to say, for purposes pertaining to this blog, they do have a pool table. It's way in its own back room, which is always an ideal situation. I recently paid the bar a visit to check things out. Turns out, I had been to the bar one other time since that time way back when, I'm guessing around 2002 or so, I just had forgotten. I didn't play pool on this most recent visit, as there seemed to be some sort of office party hogging the pool room, with the inherent and agonizingly slow doubles play, and a waiting list a mile long. But I will definitely go back there some time soon. A good stop on the non-obvious, non-league pool bar circuit that includes other nearby places such as 119 Bar, Dewey's Flatiron, and Plug Uglies.