40 Knots Bar

40 Knots is a cool litlte dive bar, and I’m sure it’s main attraction for most is its proximity to places like Pok Pok and Alma. So you can go here and wait, play some pool, drink some cheap beers. They’re also cool with you bringing in outside food.

If I lived around the corner, this would be my neighborhood spot. It’s a better dive. You can sit and be relaxed at the bar and have a friendly chat with the bartender, who will surprise you with recommendations. Always a bonus to have a savvy booze hound on your side.

This is my favorite neighborhood bar. Super chill bartenders and a great vibe with a nice back area and outdoor space. Kind of a dive.

Formally MicNic now its 40 Knots. Still great drinks and bartenders. Calm place to grab a drink on the weekend and sit in the backyard or at the bar and chat with the bartender!

My new local. I still have my old local, but I’m going to be spending a lot more time here because it’s a lot closer. Largely for the $ 1 pool table (even with a free, better-​lit table across the street). When you factor in the affordable drinks, eclectic sound track and private smoking garden — what’s not to like? And not far from the train. I hear they’re recruiting for an APA league pool team. I might sign up.

My running club had our monthly get together here on 10÷7÷14. This bar is excellent. The bartender was polite, efficient, and super chill. The music rocked in a way that most bars don’t know how to rock, and we had a great time playing pool. I hope my group comes back here time and time again.

Everything you want from a neighborhood bar. Zero pretension, a big backyard, a pool table, and strong drinks. They’re now serving small plates, so you don’t EVER have to leave.

Pretty awesome place. Bartender, caroline. I think. Very attentive but not overbearing. Reasonable priced drinks and I lovee the pool table. A dollar a game. not bad. The juke box had my boyfriend and I rockin out to some tunes we loved but be careful not to get addicted amd spend all your money. Was here last Saturday around 8ish and it was pretty dead inside but that really didn’t bother us. Outside area is pretty nice as well. just be sure to keep it down
Lookin for a chilled date night spot or to meet with some friends… I would definetly recommend micnic. …also…I wouldnt really call this place a «lounge» just a great size bar

A true undiscovered gem along Brooklyn’s waterfront and a throw-​back (in the best possible way) to bars where everyone can know your name. The outdoor deck is an oasis and retreat from the stresses of everyday life in NYC and there is a great team of creative forces on staff bringing some of the most unique programming to be experienced this side of the Lower East side– ca. 1980’s pre-​gentrification! Personality without the heavy handed Brooklyn branding works quite well in my book. Check them out– alone or with friends, relax and enjoy. Mik Nic can also host your special event or party and there is plenty of room to move around!

Best ‘Cheers Bar’ in Brooklyn! This bar has a great neighborhood feel and is nestled in the Brooklyn Waterfront District. The bartenders get to know their patrons on a personal level and make it easy to be the ‘go to’ bar if you live close by. The jute box is great and has a wide selection of music. Depending on your mood that night, you can play whatever type music interests you. Also the big back yard is great when the weather is nice.

A hidden, divy gem on Columbia Street. I can’t recommend this place enough for dive bar peoples. Funky décor, cheap beer, a batty but charming bartender, a well-​maintained pool table and a sizable backyard.
Couple this with dinner at Pok Pok NY and you got yourself quite the night.

To me, the word «Lounge» is a turnoff, because I think either of a tacky, posh scene with compilation music accompanying knockoff mod furniture or a backroom kind of place with smoke in the air. Either way, I imagine a bunch of bored/​boring clientele, all posturing like they’re almost famous.
Given this, I would have found this hidden gem much faster had it been properly named «the cute shack that reminds me of your favorite overseas island deep dive bar,» or something that evokes this essence. Especially on a hot summer afternoon, nestled in amongst an outcropping of fledgling businesses by the otherwise deserted Brooklyn waterfront, the low ceiling, pool table, 80s/​90s music, and Christmas lighting, and hanging beads evoke a foreign watering hole, complete with an awesome, pirate-​like female bartender with an un-​American accent, and a resident weirdo who is odd not because he is four feet tall, but because he has really strong opinions about subjects you can’t really follow as he tells you about it.
I forget how much the drinks are… oh wait, I think it began with $ 5 picklebacks; a well shot with pickle juice. Some overflow might have been on the house, and yes, the server went ahead and drank with us, and though this is «wrong,» I thought, YEAH. These were spliced with ironically consumed bottles of domestic beers (might as well play along and roar that you miss the old homeland as you throw another one back)…
Cut to my companion and me scarfing down one plate at a neighboring Thai restaurant with a fat fly hovering about, then back to MikNic we went, veering for DIRTY MARTINIS which were EXTRA DIRTY, I mean she basically wrung out the whole jar of olive juice into the highball (not martini) glasses in which the beverage was served. The last thing I remember is some clips of the U.S. Women’s gymnastic’s team on the balance beam, and yelling back and forth with the bartender one foot away from me about what tricks WE’D always wanted to do… and then I was… embarrassing myself in more than one way right outside, with my friend holding me up — and away from him. MEAN headache and wounded pride the next day… ahhh yes… welcome to paradise.
Yet, I am eager to return, once I can be assured that I will be unrecognized and maintain my status as international woman of mystery.

Big
Space with
Patio
And billiards but
No draft beer and a little too empty.

No hipsters, no tourists, just people from the neighborhood. The spacious bar has an even more spacious outdoor patio, it’s the real draw to this bar. The pool table and cheap beers are also a good selling point.

This place is only really cool on a warm weeknight where you can enjoy the backyard. I went back on a Saturday night for the ‘dance party’ and it was dead, bad music with no dancing in sight.

Moved into the neighborhood about a year ago and just wandered into MikNic about 3 months ago. Wish I had done it sooner! Great local crowd hangs out here and it seems they have never met a stranger. I have lived in nyc for 15+ years and the bartenders here in a word… ROCK! (and I have been to a lot of bars during those years)
I agree with Brian m., it is also quickly becoming one of my favorite Brooklyn bars! Do yourself a favor and check it out.

This is quickly becoming one of my favorite Brooklyn bars. Here’s why:
The bartenders are super friendly and fun.
Cheap drinks.
Happy Hours — that are really happy, with happy chatty local patrons.
Great jukebox, with lots of pop-​music hits.
Weekly Karaōke Wednesdays.
Sometimes Comedy Thursdays.
Pool table in the back.
A bigger than expected garden.
The bartenders tendency to give free pickle-​back shots (… it’s an acquired taste).
And yes, it’s in the near-​middle of nowhere (the Carroll St/​F train is about a 12 minute walk from there), but its right next door to a Car Service company if you have a drunken hike ahead of you.
The only criticism I have is that sometimes the music is deafeningly loud. This is fine if packed with people, but it’s often really unnecessary, and you can often see patrons standing where the speakers aren’t. Just something they may want to consider. Otherwise, love it.

It’s not really close to a subway, which by New York standards kind of puts it in the boonies, but it’s a perfectly good locals kind of place for everyone in the Columbia Waterfront District.* Sure, you’re going to walk 10 minutes from the Carroll Street ‘F’ stop, but so what? Cheap beers, especially on a Monday when I was here are nothing to sneeze at.
And if you live in the neighborhood, it’s even better because you barely ever have to worry about it being too crowded.
Pool table in the back, with a small flat screen TV up front that might get choppy signals during a crucial play (doubt it’s their fault, I blame Time Warner) and a friendly bartender is about all I could ask.
* — So that’s what they call this place. I had no idea, even though I’d been to this neighborhood before.

Want to drink and watch
An Amazon queen dance with–
out her shoes? MikNic.
(b)

I believe life’s juicy sweetness is to eschew the negativity for a motivator as an inspiration outlet in writing ablaze!
Tuesday night to electrify MikNic Lounge with an Open-​Mike where I was fortunate to be one of the feature performers to own the night for twenty minutes. The air was certainly not dry where this JUICY ignite heart’s flames where passion is sprightly happy, alive and alluring!
Very limited food options but I must say my pre-​dinner of grilled cheese on white bread, which I personally prefer white bread or potato bread. The grilled cheese is accompanied with and tortilla chips which appeared to be store bought straight from a bag of Tostitos. I open summer with Sangria which this is the weakest I’ve endured and diluted immensely in water. The house red wine was bland to replenish my juicy following my feature performance. Food delivery is accepted here for patrons who wishes to hang past the moonlight. MikNic Lounge hosts various live performances of emerging DJ’s, spoken word artists, and above all a welcoming warm, friendly and very inviting atmosphere from staff. Personally, I am willing to travel a long haul two hour journey be it Washington Heights in Manhattan or Brooklyn for a Poetry Open-​Mike as the atmosphere is extremely welcoming warm and most of all sincerely inviting, which this is a grossly sensitive and major issue to my heart’s core. The atmosphere is extremely dark and dingy and as a spoken word performer/​artist I require a flash light enabling me to see when reciting my work. The bar tender Nikki is friendly and accommodating to patron’s needs as she adjusts the height of the microphone in preparation of my feature performance.
Pickle back shots at $ 5.00 per shot, yet a rare find which MikNic Lounge is my first encounter in New York. The air circulation is extremely weak as air supply is nonexistent to be roasting inside a sweltering sauna!
Note: The nearest train is the F, G lines which is an agonizing fifteen minute walk from Carroll Street passing the Brooklyn-​Queens Expressway. Smith Street station in undergoing major construction thus inaccessible.
I still believe!

Once upon a time, on a snow-​ridden, ass-​cold late January evening, I walked into a humble, cozy, MikNic Lounge at 4pm to have a drink and check the place out, as I decided to hoof it from Jersey and go neighborhood exploring in Brooklyn like any other insane person does fresh off another snowstorm.
Whether it was me not wanting to go back out into the cold, whether it was the owner shooting me sass and great wit the entire night, or whether I just had the best time meeting folks from a neighborhood that was more than stoked to have a new bar to call their own, I left MikNic Lounge… TWELVE HOURS LATER.
Yep, you read that right. Twelve hours. Same barstool. Dinner brought from Mazzat down the street to balance my belly. And who knows what else before I decided to take my ass back to Jersey. I was told I was «lit up like Baghdad» when I showed up again the following weekend, but I am positive that was meant in the most endearing sense.
All in all, great spot, this. Great music. Cozy neighborhood atmosphere. No attitude. And the best hosts in a little great neighborhood. I regret not being there now — I can only imagine their back patio being a perfect spot to hang out in the summer. Maybe not for 12 whole hours. Unless you’re insane like me. Or in no hurry to get back to Jersey.
5 Stars (with additional high fives to the Punjabi cabbies I bonded with on my way back to WTC).

The place just opened a few weeks ago, come by, grab a drink, and give it a warm welcome!
This is a great new neighborhood (albeit not my neighborhood.) lounge. Friendly, inviting atmosphere with good music played at a reasonable volume. Great selection of beers, ranging from fancy craft beer for classy people to Bud Light and Highlife for people like me (READ: not classy!) and the prices for all beers seemed reasonable.

I have yet to find a bar that can come close to offering the experience a night at Miknic’s provides.
This bar opened about a month ago, and already has my loyalty.
It’s a gem located a short walk from the F & G Trains between the neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens and Red Hook.
Immediately upon entering, you’re hit with the warm environment and eclectic mix of locals chattering and laughing it up. The music is gold, and unlike most bars, is in good taste!
The prices are beyond reasonable with an exceptional choice of beer including Young’s Chocolate Stout, Magic Hat, Newcastle, and of course favorites for those of us who prefer simpler options such as Budweiser and Miller High Life.
Mixed drinks are quite reasonable as well. You get more than enough liquor for the small price that’s asked.
There’s also a foosball table and outdoor seating (for warmer weather)!
How can you beat that? Answer: You can’t.
To sum it up:
— class
— warmth
— modesty
— laughter
— reasonable prices
— good selection
— cleanliness
— fun
If these words appeal to you, this is your bar.