Doghouse Saloon

I've been sitting on this picture of the pool table at Doghouse Saloon since around mid-October or so. The quick back story for you is that I had walked by a week or so earlier, noticed a new sportsbar-type sign posted outside and a couple construction guys standing by the entrance having a smoke. They were in the process of renovating Annex and transforming it into Doghouse. I asked by chance if there was to be a pool table and they confirmed this.

So several days later I was killing time on a Friday night before going out to a party in Williamsburg. As I recall it was quite early, maybe not even 6:30PM, when I went in. The only people there were a couple guys playing beer bong on the ground floor. I was happy to discover the pool table was in an upstairs game room area. I quickly grabbed a beer and played a solo game and that was that. The table was in excellent shape, although it cost two dollars per game to play on it. The space immediately reminded me of a double-wide, frattier version of The Skinny just up the street on Orchard. By the way, Doghouse is at 152 Orchard, a few doors above Rivington Street. Combined with Sixth Ward and Lucky Jack's, I'd definitely say this pretty much cements Orchard Street's status as the most pool-friendly street on the Lower East Side. For a more in-depth breakdown of the Annex-Doghouse transition, check out the excellent neighborhood blog Bowery Boogie. (Note: the image above is an assembled panoramic from two separate photographs)