Rudy's Bar & Grill, Hell's Kitchen.

The cheapest pitcher in Manhattan, with a free hot dog.

Rudy's is the bar Hell's Kitchen drinks at when Hell's Kitchen has a hangover. It opened the day Prohibition ended in December 1933, and has poured almost continuously since. The pitcher of Rudy's house draft is twelve dollars. Each pitcher comes with one free hot dog. Two pitchers, two hot dogs. The math has not changed in nine decades.

The room is one long red booth on the right, a long bar on the left, a battered jukebox at the back, and a kitchen that opens at 8am for hangover beers. The vinyl on the booths has split and been duct-taped at least nine times. The pig statue at the front door is a city landmark.

Why this matters. Rudy's is the bar that proves a Manhattan dive can keep its prices honest if the lease is right. The Bersoff family bought the building in 1968 and have refused every offer since. That is the entire economic miracle of the room.

The free hot dog system.

You will not find this written down anywhere inside the bar. Order a pitcher, the bartender pulls a pre-made hot dog from the warmer behind the bar and slides it to you on a paper napkin. No bun, no tray. Mustard and ketchup live in plastic bottles at the booth. Onions are in a small bowl at the bar.

The dog itself is a Sabrett, the New York Yellow Cart classic, boiled. It is the most honest two dollar food in Manhattan, and it is free. Order a second pitcher and you get a second hot dog. Order a third pitcher and the bartender will start asking who you are with.

The kitchen also serves a half pound burger for nine dollars and a chilli dog for four. Both are good. The hot dogs that come with pitchers are the unique ritual.

The Rudy's draft, in pitcher form.

The Rudy's house lager is a Yuengling-style red ale brewed for the bar to a specification that the regulars insist has not changed since the 1980s. It pours pale amber, comes only in pitchers, and costs twelve dollars. This is what to drink. There are no other options worth ordering.

• Round one: a pitcher of Rudy's draft, two glasses, two free hot dogs.
• Round two: repeat.
• The shot option: the well whisky is honest at four dollars. Old Crow on a good night, a generic mixed batch on a slow Tuesday.
• The hangover order: Bloody Mary at 9am, three dollars, comes with a celery stalk and a hot dog you have to ask for.
• What not to order: wine. There is none worth drinking. Cocktails. There are none.

Open 20 hours a day. Pick your slot.

Rudy's opens at 8am Monday through Saturday and at noon on Sunday. It closes at 4am every night. That gives you four functional time windows, each with a different bar.

• 9am-noon: the morning regulars. Bartenders, theatre crew, postal workers. The bar is quiet, the hot dogs come fast, the booths are empty.
• 3pm-6pm: the matinee crowd. Pre-Broadway tourists and second-shift dock workers. The booths fill in with people drinking cheap before the eight o'clock curtain.
• 9pm-1am: the show crowd. Loud, packed, the booths solid four-deep, the jukebox loud. This is the famous Rudy's of legend and the time most visitors mean.
• 1am-4am: the after-shift crowd. Restaurant cooks getting off, cab drivers on break, the booths half empty again, the jukebox quieter.

The sweet spot is 6pm-8pm on a Wednesday: enough crowd to feel alive, enough room to find a booth.

What that statue is, and why people kiss it.

The four foot pig statue at the front door has been there since 1933, the year Prohibition was repealed. It is a 1930s butcher's shop sign, original to the building, painted red. The legend among Hell's Kitchen regulars is that you kiss the pig on the way out for luck. The pig is wiped down twice a day. Most people skip the kiss. A few people commit.

The pig also functions as the bar's address marker. The street number on the door is faded. Tell a Lyft driver to drop you at "the bar with the pig on Ninth" and they will know within a block. The pig is the brand identity. The bar is the bar.

The cheapest serious night in Manhattan.

For two people, plan for thirty to forty dollars including tips. Two pitchers, two free hot dogs, four dollars in tip per round. That is enough beer for four hours of evening conversation. Add ten dollars for a shared burger from the kitchen and you have eaten dinner.

For four people, sixty to seventy dollars. Four pitchers, four free dogs, two rounds of shots from the well. The booths in the back hold five comfortably and are first come, first served. You cannot reserve a booth. You can pile coats on a stool to hold a spot if your group is splitting incoming.

Tip discipline matters here. The bartenders are running thirty pitchers an hour. Two dollars per pitcher is the minimum. Five dollars on a round of shots gets you a quicker pour next time.

The clientele, by the half hour.

Rudy's clientele rotates through a Hell's Kitchen day in a way you can almost set a watch by. Morning brings restaurant workers ending their shifts and a small contingent of overnight cab drivers warming up. By 4pm the matinee tourists have arrived from Broadway. By 7pm the show crowd is packing the booths, including a long-running tradition of theatre crew who finish loading in for the 8pm curtain and come for one quick pitcher before show call.

By 11pm the late shift restaurant cooks arrive, often in their whites. By 1am the bar is quieter than at 9pm but still has a steady current of tipped-out servers from the Times Square restaurants. This rotation is the closest Manhattan comes to a 1950s working class bar still in operation.

How not to be the worst person at Rudy's.

• Do not order anything not on the laminated menu. The bartenders will say no without smiling.
• Do not pet the pig. Kissing it is fine. Putting your hand on it is not. Locals do not.
• Do not photograph the bartenders. They will tell you to stop. They are working a forty-pitcher shift.
• Do not bring a bachelorette party. Rudy's hosts a working clientele on a Friday at 9pm and your sash will not be welcomed by the tug captain in booth four.
• Do not negotiate the hot dog count. One pitcher, one hot dog. The arithmetic is not flexible. Asking for two with one pitcher gets you neither.
• Do not arrive at midnight on a Saturday. The line down 9th is forty minutes long and you will not get a booth.

Eat at the Empire Diner first, drink at Rudy's after.

Rudy's hot dogs are the bar food. They are not dinner. The pre-game is the Empire Diner on Tenth or Joe Allen on Restaurant Row. Both are walking distance, both have the same Hell's Kitchen working-class regulars, both keep prices near the Rudy's range. The pre-show menu at Joe Allen is twenty-eight dollars for three courses if you arrive before 6:30pm.

The post-game, if you are still standing, is across 9th to Pony Bar for craft beer that tastes like the opposite of Rudy's, or down to McCoy's for a third pitcher. Better still, walk to Times Square and catch the F train back wherever you came from. Rudy's is a finished evening on its own.

For more bars in the area, see our New York city guide and the Hell's Kitchen sports bars list.

Yes. The cheapest serious night in town.