After a night of food and drinks with some friends who were part of the trade show that I was attending in New York City recently, I walked back - more like, staggered back - to my hotel on W. 42nd from an Irish bar on 9th Ave. in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. I was walking along W. 40th and got to the corner at 8th Ave. I was waiting for the light to change and I happened to look up at the building behind me. The name on the two sides of the corner building sort of took me by surprise. I made a mental note of it - actually, I had to write it down when I got back to the hotel so I would remember it. The next day, I took a lunch break and made it down to Beer Authority.
Joe Donagher was born in New York City, but ended up moving back to his parent's native Ireland as a young man. His father became the town commissioner in Ballyshannon, a small coastal town in northwest Ireland near the Northern Ireland border. After college, Joe decided to move back to the states to look for work. He found it in construction, which in the early 2000's was booming in New York City. Within three months he was able to put a downpayment on a house. By 2006, Donagher had saved enough money to open a little Irish deli/store in the Woodside neighborhood in Queens. He would go in at 5:30 in the morning to get his employees started for the day, then he'd go off to work his construction job. After work, he'd take a couple hours to himself at home, then go back to the deli around 5:30 to help out until the deli closed at 9:00 p.m.
A year later, Donagher opened a little bar in the Maspeth section of Queens - an area known for a large Irish population. But with the downturn in the economy, a number of the Irish ex-pats in the area were moving back to Ireland to find work. Donagher decided to sell both the deli, his little bar, and his house. But what he did was more daring than throwing in the towel and moving back to Ireland like many of the people in the neighborhood. He moved into Manhattan and explored opening a pub.
Donagher had fallen in love with the burgeoning craft beer movement and wanted to have a place where he could have a variety of micro-brewed beers to choose from. In late 2008, along with fellow Irish partners Liam Whyte and Eamon Donnelly, they opened Rattle and Hum on E. 33rd St near Madison Square Garden. The place featured Irish-inspired foods and over 60 craft brews on tap. Named after the Irish-band U2's live album, Rattle and Hum was a huge hit. In 2012, a second Rattle and Hum opened on W. 39th St. in Manhattan. (The original Rattle and Hum closed in 2018 due to ever increasing rent hikes from the landlord.)
Before opening the second Rattle and Hum location, Donagher and his partners were looking to open a similar bar with more refined Irish cuisine. They found a two-story building across the street from the Port Authority bus terminal and began renovations in the summer of 2011. Donagher and his partners brought in a chef from Belfast - David Gallagher - to prepare a menu of what Donagher described as "high-end gastropub" food. Hoping to open their doors in late November of 2011, the group ran into snags that postponed the opening until April of 2012. Donagher and his partners called their new restaurant/pub Beer Authority - not that they were authorities on the beers they served, but as a nod to their across-the-street neighbor who had well over two million people pass through the Port Authority on an annual basis.
It was about a 10 minute walk from the hotel where the trade show was taking place down to Beer Authority sitting on the southwest corner of 8th Ave. and W. 40th St., technically in Hell's Kitchen. (see map) It was a gloriously bright and sunny day with a bit of a windy chill in the air that made the walk a bit brisk. Entering the restaurant from W. 40th St., I found a small bar area that really didn't look like much. I sat down at the bar and thought to myself, "Hmmm... This doesn't look like much."
I turned around and saw someone walking upstairs. I asked the bartender if there was another room upstairs and he said in an Irish-accent, "Yeah, our main room is upstairs." I apologized for sitting there thinking he was going to have another customer and he said, "No worries. Happens all the time."
When I got to the second level, I found this spacious area with a long bar along one wall and windows lining the east and north sides of the building allowing a ton of natural light to finish in. Exposed ductwork hung from the ceiling and there were a number of flatscreen televisions around the room. Despite the fact that there was a great college basketball game going on about six blocks to south at Madison Square Garden, all the televisions in the place were tuned to the Manchester City vs. Liverpool Premier League contest. (I've learned that soccer is No.1 at all sports bars and pubs in New York.) And the sound system at the pub had the British play-by-play announcers calling the game.
The main room at Beer Authority featured a number of tables throughout the place. There was a stairway that took you up to the third level beer garden. Of course, being that it was late February, the beer garden was closed. But I did see pictures of the area and thought that would be a great place to hang out on a warm day. But the windows had a number of tables that looked down onto the streets below, a good place to "people watch" any day.
As I normally do when I dine by myself, I planted my bottom on a bar stool at the 60 foot+ Mahogany bar. The bartender that day was a young lady by the name of Anne. She gave me a food menu to check out, and I got a beer menu to look through, as well. They have nearly 50 beers on tap to choose from and many are there on a rotating basis. And there was probably more than 60 different craft, domestic and imported beers available in cans and bottles. Plus Beer Authority had a full bar with a number of specialty cocktails available. I saw a couple beers on tap that I wanted to try - the Teenage Mutant Ninja Gerbils hazy IPA from Brooklyn's Kings County Brewing Collective (KCBC), and the Five Boroughs Tiny Juicy hazy IPA also out of Brooklyn that I had enjoyed previously on this trip to New York. I ordered the hazy IPA from KCBC first, then ordered the Five Boroughs hazy for my second beer. Both were very tasty.
I would have to dispute the notion that the menu was "upscale gastropub" fare because it was very typical of similar pubs I've been to in New York. The appetizers featured wings, calamari, a Buffalo chicken dip, different varieties of nachos, and a house-made guacamole served with tortilla chips and fried green plantains. They also had tacos, sliders and three-cheese potato skins. Beer Authority had a number of sandwiches and burgers, and they had a variety of 10" pizzas on the menu. Other than salads and a kid's menu, that was about all they had to offer.
I had pizza the night before and a burger the previous afternoon, so both of those things were out. I didn't really see anything on the appetizer menu that tripped my trigger - although the steak tacos that were topped with a salsa trio blend of tomatillo, roasted poblanos, and a salsa roja caught my eye. And they didn't really have a lot of sandwiches to choose from. But at the bottom of the sandwich list, I saw something that I decided to get.
I went with the pastrami sandwich - thin-sliced beef brisket pastrami topped with melted Swiss cheese, pickled jalapeños and a green apple cole slaw all served on grilled marble rye. The green apple cole slaw I was bit tentative on since I don't care for green apples all that much. Well, not at all, that is. I figured that if the taste of the cole slaw was too obtrusive, I'd just scrape it off.
But it turns out that I didn't have to worry much about that because the taste of the sandwich was fabulous. The brisket pastrami was tender and flavorful. The sandwich was lightly grilled and even with the cole slaw and Swiss cheese, the tastiness of the brisket really shined through. The fries - served in a paper wrap in a tin can - were sort of "meh!" But that was fine. I wanted to concentrate on the sandwich.
As I was enjoying my lunch, the Man City/Liverpool soccer game concluded and the sound from the television feed of the match was switched over to a mix of 70's disco and R&B from the likes of Abba, Earth, Wind & Fire, Tavares, and the Spanish female disco/pop duo Baccara. Despite the fact that I usually don't listen to music like that, I didn't find the music annoying in any way. Plus, they tuned some of the televisions behind the bar to the latter stages of the college basketball game being played just down the street. But by that time the game was pretty much a foregone conclusion.
And I'm sorry to say that Anne wasn't really on her "A" game that day. I had finished my second beer and determined that I could probably have one more beer before I had to go back and hang for the final couple hours of the show. But she was down at the opposite end of the long bar talking it up with someone. And since I was the only other person seated at the bar, she wasn't coming back down my way anytime soon. When she finally did come down, it was 10 minutes later and I was ready to go. Yeah, I could have been an ass and said something like, "Hey! I'd like a beer down here!" But it was probably best that I didn't have another one.
Other than Anne not paying attention to the other end of the bar when I really wanted another beer, I have no complaints about my visit to Beer Authority. Well, plus the fact that they only had the Premier League soccer game on all their televisions and there were - maybe - 25 people in the place, when they could have been showing a great college basketball game going on at the Garden down 8th Ave., it was a fine experience. Actually, I should have probably sat at one of the window tables looking down at either W. 40th St. or 8th Avenue to take in the vibrant New York City street scene. My brisket pastrami sandwich was wonderful, they had a great beer selection, and the place had a nice little laid-back vibe. I may have to be back in New York this coming summer and I may just go back to Beer Authority to have a couple beers on their third-level outdoor beer garden. If I do, I'll take some pictures and add them to this post.
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