Denny’s Steak Pub

Love this place, prices are good and the quantity is great. The bartenders are great and make you feel like home…

This is a great neighborhood bar. The only reason I can’t give five stars is because they close at 2 a.m. instead of 4 a.m. on weekends. But the drinks are good, cheap, and buy backs are often.

Denny’s, Bar in Kensington, Brooklyn, is an interesting spot. It sits over the Church Avenue F stop and at the corner where MacDonald Avenue, Beverley Road and Church Avenue meet. The space is large with both bar stools and small tables, a pool table and juke box. For those who want a drink or a snack, a Jack Daniel’s is $ 5.50, far less than in many bars. There is always a hot tray. While the food is not great, it offers a quick snack. And it is free.
Generally, during busy hours, the atmosphere is noisy, but friendly. I have been going there for years, having started in order to watch Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls play on Denny’s cable TV. Even though I am a fish out of water with my white collar dress, my wife and I have always felt welcome. Some of the bartenders will treat you to a free drink or beer and put out pretzels and other treats.
Part of what I like about Denny’s is that it connects an earlier Kensington with today. This is reflected in the people who go there. There are still the regulars, many of the men uniformed — (fire, security) or blue collar workers, some with Irish roots, and you will hear occasional brogues. At the same time, today’s crowd including some S. Asians and young Caucasians — usually in small groups — are beginning to fill more of the space. And there may be one or two heavy drinkers present.
The bar was established in 1975 by Denny Ryan. He owned a bar near Prospect Park. Shenigans. When he won the lottery he bought the building in which Denny is now based, and set up a bar and grill. Today, it is run by his son, Kevin Ryan, occasionally helped by his other son, Dennis.

I live in the neighborhood and use to frequent Denny’s every once in awhile. One night some friends and I went to Denny’s for some drinks for his birthday. We ended up getting into a huge brawl with the bar that resulted in two of my friends getting arrested and one of them getting run over with a car
Great bar! Cheap drinks! Five stars!

My favorite bar ever probably.
They don’t serve steak anymore, but the crowd is fun and always up for a conversation! The bartenders are hilarious and very generous with booze. Cash only!
Everyone should try this place at least once. Totally unpretentious and will bring you back to a different time :)

This place has such an eerie vibe to it. I had recently turned 21 and wanted to have a relaxed evening with my roommate and boyfriend. We wanted to go out for a drink or two but not venture out to Park Slope. I remembered seeing a bar on Church Avenue so we figured we would try Denny’s. The moment we went in everyone stared. The lights were on and there was no music. Trying not to make too much out of it I went to the bar and was asked for ID. When I gave it to the bartender he said «25». I thought he was making a joke or something that I didn’t understand and then he said it again. «25». I asked him what he meant and he said «You have to be 25 to drink here». I was slightly taken back, and mentioned I had never heard of a bar with a 25 year age limit, and he explained that the bar gets a lot of fights. Well you don’t have to tell me twice! So we left. I guess now that I’m older I can understand that some bars might want to have a certain crowd but there was something so strange about that place. People who seemed to be in their 50’s, drinking in a bright room with no music that stared when non-​regulars showed up… they seemed spooked. Even though I wasn’t served I won’t give this place a 1, it caters to a certain clientele and I can’t really fault them with that I supposed. I just wonder what it will be like if I go when I’m 25…

Superbly cheap beer. and this is a dive bar. dont go in with an empty stomache

This is your local fireman bar, but don’t get too excited now, the demographics trend upwards of fifty. Pushy regulars are territorial but nothing to worry about. If you’re under 40 and have bewbz the gents of the joint will roll out the red carpet.
They don’t serve food, and find it amusing, oddly, when people come in asking, so don’t be misled by the signage.
Beer and spirits and wine of the Château Diana ilk. I stick with a Tangueray/​tonic which has been a safe bet the one or two times my friend from the neighborhood has dragged me in here.

Wait. This place has food? It has been an unchanged fixture in the Kensington neighborhood for years. I remember watching people fall out of this place. Women with bad hair and daisy dukes, horrible muffin top and belly blouses, adorned with fringe… dark black eyeliner and dark lipliner, over frosted pink lipstick… Oh, my eyes.
It’s the kind of place that you walk into after you have already surpassed the legal limit at the previous 3 bars and you need to use a bathroom. Next thing you know, you start nibbling on the free snacks at the bar. Is it a dive bar? No. It is an armpit bar. If you are a woman, and walk in alone, you will be the only woman in this bar… alone. The patrons are retirees, who have retired from everything, except drinking. The bar tender has wit, but never gets to use it. You go in and you have one. Just one. You don’t want this to be your entire evening, or you will walk out with an unshakable depression. They have a pool table, but you are afraid to ask if it is in use. But then you realize it is all in your head. The locals are friendly. The bartender is professional and you can’t beat the price at happy hour. Like I said, if you need to use a bathroom on your walk home…

If you like old, racist alcoholics, go here.
Otherwise, only go here if you need a quick drink (aka, shot). Or if you need to pee before getting on the F or G train.

I love Brooklyn dive bars, they’re an endangered species these days and I’m thankful for the mere existence of them. Denny’s on the other hand, is not a particularly good one. Militantly local, sweatpants clad dads stand outside staring you down through a fog of exhaled smoke, daring your candy-​ass to cross the threshold. The question is, how bad do you want a Bud Light? Probably not that much most of the time, and being that it’s the only bar in Kensington, you’ve just made a date with the F train. On the rare occasion I do venture into Denny’s, it’s fine. Good bartenders, buybacks, pool table, cackling old dudes — not for nuthin, but it’s a real Brooklyn bar.

I must’ve written my last review after an unusually fun evening, because everytime I walk my dog by there in the evening, the smoking crowd outside is. okay, there’s no other way to put this… mentally ill. This is NOT my way of making a joke. I don’t think mental illness is funny. But I also don’t think it’s a good idea to drink at a bar where there is a serious threat of unwittingly tangling with someone who may or may not be hallucinating at the time.
That said, I stand by my insistence that the bartenders are nice and the prices are good. And I’m sure I’ll stumble in there again, surrounded by my usual crowd of mostly large male friends, and have a pleasant, fun drink.

This is a dive bar. They no longer serve food (and that’s probably a good thing). The drinks are cheap and they do have buy-​backs. The taps are probably almost never cleaned though. As a test, get a bottled beer and that same beer on tap and see what you think. The best nights to go are Friday and Saturday in my opinion. Just be prepared :)

I popped by but was told to leave the droids outside. Then at the bar some young punk said something about having a death sentence and tried picking a fight, but an old man intervened and an insanely tall & hairy woman yowled. The music was awful and the place was packed with Guidos and otherwordly characters.
I like dive bars but this was a uniquely wretched hive. On the plus side I did meet an expert smuggler, which someday might come in handy. This wasn’t the bar I was looking for.

I went in with a couple of friends just to check it out. We all grew up in the neighborhood but never had the balls to go in and we finally did… definitely an old man bar. I stepped in about 3pm and we all got the «cowboy stare down» from the regulars. We had two beers each and played two games of pool.
Beers were cheap.

It’s a dive bar, pure and simple. On the downside that means it’s generally kind of empty inside, with a crew of (seemingly) down on their luck regulars mostly keeping the place going. On the upside, it’s cheap and there’s sometimes free hotdogs or something offered. It is what it is. Not where you would ever go on a date, or for a fancy cocktail drink, but a place you can get a cheap beer or rum and coke if you just want to get out of your house.

yeah, you don’t come here for the savoire faire.
you come to this cranky old character when you seek the solace of light as a moth to the flame. before you continue down the pockmarked path of church avenue, you remark on the unremarkable, the grit of too many yesterdays.

I learned how to do the Dougie in this bar.
This bar will not exist in Brooklyn in five years. Or it will exist for 70 – 170,000 more. Yeah, reverse Pleistocene era.
No but this bar is seedy as hell in a neighborhood about 80% Bangladeshi or that’s what it feels like. Maybe 65−70% with 10% Orthodox Jew-​ish.
A-​ok is about right. A surprisingly good jukebox. Sometimes even hipsters but I’m not in there a ton. My San Francisco living/​Philly grow up ing close friend/​college roomate enjoyed it a lot.
Everything I just wrote was irrelevant after learning the Dougie.

Not a steakhouse but, a great warm up spot. A great place to get your night started. Inexpensive drinks, but not cheap. Mostly beer and shots. I don’t think you’ll get a martini, but $ 5 bucks for a generous shot. Friendly, mature and, respectful crowd, when they have one. Pool table a plus.

Everyone in here is usually a dick, they barely have half of the usual liquors that a bar serves and despite being a ‘steak pub’ there is no food.
Upsides: $ 1.75 mugs of Budweiser, darts
Draw: Pool table, but its always like a 3 game wait