Gateway to the East Village

I suppose I've had a blog post about Nice Guy Eddie's on the back burner for a while now. Whenever I'm going to the East Village, nine times out of ten I'll walk right by there. It's the kind of place I dismissed for a long time. Heck, I dismissed the East Village the first five years I lived here. Perhaps it was the garish KISS mural outside, or it reminded me a lot of the kinds of places I disliked in college. I always thought of it as a "lowest common denominator" bar, or very "Indianapolis." I guess I just thought it lacked sophistication.

But I obviously had a change of heart, somewhere around 2004. The first time I stepped in was to have a beer before meeting a friend for a show across the street at Mercury Lounge. Actually, it was an old neighbor of mine from Stanton, a musician by the name of Andrew Goodsight, who had used one of my photos as artwork on the cover of his CD. At that time he was living in Florida but was back in NYC visiting and had invited me to the show, some friends of his who were performing. I arrived early and naively thought I would be on the list. Instead of forking over the $10 cover I went across the street to Nice Guy Eddie's. A little later he called and I told him where I was and so he came over and we had 2-for-1s instead of going to the show (he met up with his friends afterwards).

I remembered the cheap happy hour and have since suggested Nice Guy Eddie's as a meeting place, particularly for people coming from other parts of the city because it's so close to the F train. I of course began stopping in to play pool, and for a while it was my favorite place to get warmed up before heading to Sophie's. I remember the first time I played pool there, there was a guy who was a damn good player. He was playing a much weaker player, but he hit the eight in early on a bad roll and had to sit down. Then it was my turn to play, and I pretty much destroyed the weaker player. It was very much an adrenaline game, the kind where I go on automatic and come across as a flawless player. Then, the next player I played was a lot better and for whatever reason I started making stupid mistakes. The first player noticed these mistakes and was scoffing at me, essentially accusing me of missing shots on purpose. What could I tell him? I can be a pretty inconsistent player.

Nice Guy Eddie's is one of the new places we played this season in our different division. I was looking forward to playing there and seeing who all on their team I might know. There were a few familiar faces, in particular Joe B. (in white shirt above), who I remembered from killer pool at Edge. We had a good time there, eeking out a 3-2 win against a very evenly matched team.

I wrote "Gateway to the East Village" as the title because Nice Guy Eddie's is the first place I look into when I'm entering the East Village on one of my pool tours. Because of the happy hour and the $1 table, I can easily make my dollar last a bit longer there. Even if it's only long enough to figure out where I'm headed next.