Attaboy Is the Greatest Basic Bar of 2023

Attaboy’s origin begins with New York Metropolis’s Milk & Honey, the speakeasy-style bar based at 134 Eldridge Road by the late bar pioneer Sasha Petraske, on December 31, 1999. When the clock struck midnight, the brand new millennium started. In some ways, it was additionally the start of the cocktail renaissance.

Three years later, the groundbreaking bar moved into an even bigger area additional uptown (now closed), and two Milk & Honey veterans, Sam Ross and Michael McIlroy, opened Attaboy within the Eldridge area in March 2012. Attaboy would go on to flourish, taking by itself distinct, high-energy persona, and its bartenders would go on to popularize a number of drinks now thought of important elements of the fashionable basic canon, just like the Penicillin and the Paper Airplane. 

A decade later, Attaboy remains to be going sturdy and has cemented its place as one of many world’s most essential cocktail locations.

The bar opened with a skeleton crew, Ross remembers. “We had the unique 5 bartenders, together with myself and Michael,” he says. The sport plan: maintain Milk & Honey’s high-end basic cocktails and eight-seat bar inside the slim, 500-square-foot area, and alter nearly every part else. 

That meant no extra reservations, no suspenders or vests, and no jazz.

“We have been stripping away among the fussiness that got here with Milk & Honey,” says Ross. “We needed a spot the place you may get a tremendous cocktail, however not a special-occasion place.”

Finally, the group grew, including barbacks, a bunch, and extra bartenders. The lights went decrease, the music went louder, and company ranged from vacationers who noticed Attaboy on must-visit lists, to a late-night crowd of hospitality trade regulars merely searching for a well-made Daiquiri or a beer and a shot. 

Of word, there’s no cocktail menu right here. Whereas classics and well-known originals just like the Penicillin or the Greenpoint (a McIlroy riff on the Manhattan) are one of the best sellers, Attaboy is the type of place the place bartenders will interact in a dialog about visitor preferences, then ship a well-practiced drink primarily based on that suggestions. There isn’t a “cowboy-ing,” or creating drinks on the fly, says Ross. Consistency is essential. 

At the moment, the bar “hums from begin to end,” in line with Ross. Though Attaboy opened an outpost in Nashville in 2017 beneath the purview of Brandon Bramhall, one of many “unique 5” bartenders, don’t count on to see extra Attaboys in each metropolis. “We’re not seeking to increase additional.”

That stated, the unique Attaboy will acquire a bit more room in early 2024 when an adjoining wine/tapas/spritz bar opens. It’s nonetheless unnamed however shall be “proper subsequent door as a spot to have a glass of wine and chill earlier than or after Attaboy.”

The additional area ought to assist ease one of many ache factors of getting a small footprint, and large reputation: Attaboy’s ever-present waitlist. “Except you’re strategic about if you’re getting in there, 90% of the time you’ll be put onto a waitlist,” says Ross. “Nobody likes to be advised no.” 

The bar has been celebrating its 10-year anniversary with a sequence of trade events and seminars, together with schooling about Attaboy’s roots. “We need to give a way of historical past about Milk & Honey, and the way essential Sasha Petraske was to all this,” says Ross. “It’s essential for the present and future generations of bartenders to know that all of it got here from someplace.”