Editorial
New York's outdoor bar scene in summer is one of the city's most reliable pleasures — and also one of its most crowded categories. The outdoor bars new york summer visitors ask about are rarely the ones worth the effort. The ones worth going to tend to be smaller, less obvious, and better thought through: a garden off a side street in Carroll Gardens, a waterfront terrace in DUMBO that most tourists walk past, or a backyard situation in the East Village that has been running quietly for a decade. These are the ones we keep going back to.
Brooklyn has the best outdoor bar density in the five boroughs. The combination of townhouse backyards, converted lots, and waterfront access along the East River gives it an infrastructure that Manhattan, with its limited land and premium on square footage, simply cannot match.
Manhattan's outdoor bar options are more limited than Brooklyn's, but several have developed into reliable summer destinations. The best ones tend to be either tucked into side streets away from the main tourist corridors or genuinely exceptional enough in position to justify the premium and the crowds.
The outer boroughs have outdoor bar options that most visitors never consider. Several of the best summer outdoor drinking experiences in the city are in Long Island City, Astoria, and the Bronx — accessible, less crowded, and in some cases offering the best value for the quality in all of New York.
The most underrated outdoor bar recommendation in New York: LIC Landing on a clear July evening, arriving around 7pm with a view of the sunset hitting the Midtown skyline. It is accessible, affordable, and more beautiful than most of what you will pay significantly more for on the Manhattan side. For the best cocktail quality in an outdoor setting, Employees Only's garden and Dutch Kills in Long Island City both deliver drinks programmes strong enough to be worth visiting in their own right. And for the most purely New York summer outdoor bar experience, the Frying Pan on the Hudson on a Tuesday at 6pm — the city, the river, a cold beer — is hard to argue with.
James covers the US bar scene for barsforKings and has a particular fondness for outdoor beer gardens and waterfront dives that no one on the internet has written about yet. He has been drinking in New York since before the cocktail renaissance.