Holland Bar

Great dive bar! Tiny on the inside, maybe ten bar stools but on a Tuesday night there were only a few people there. Cheap drinks too! Only complaint was one bathroom, kinda dirty, but what you’d expect.

$ 3 drafts. Clientele plays a mean juke box. Don’t leave you money on the bar, somebody snatch it. Free popcorn.

Fun Divey Hells yeah Kitchen! Convenient location near everything in the Kitch.

Crappy bartender. Friendly as a colon exam. Asked for a Guinness and got an Amstel Light. She realized the mistake before I left. Too late.

I will make this short and to the point. If you like dive bars like I do. This place is for you!

May look subpar at first, but just wait till you sit down and get fresh-​out-​of-​the-​microwave buttery popcorn served with your eighth drink of the night. Without a doubt the best bar food ever.
The lady that tended the bar during our visit was wonderful; she regularly asked for song requests and when she didn’t get any suggestions the default playlist was a mix of The Eagles and Led Zeppelin.
I don’t know about you but a down-​to-​earth dive bar prone to 70s rock was a welcome respite from the usual Midtown/Hell’s Kitchen/​Chelsea vibe. I’ll be back.

Holland Bar is narrow, crowded with random but interesting customers, old, not very pretty, with cheap, good drinks served by charismatic bartenders. In other words, it’s the perfect dive bar.
Don’t expect to find a seat, bring cash, stand, drink, converse, and enjoy the juke box.
Holland Bar keeps it simple, just the way I like it! :-)

Ignore the review that says that this is a «sports bar that only has beer.» That’s not correct.
This is a narrow, dive bar with only bar seating. We had a round of whiskey shots here. It was my birthday so the super nice bartender gave me a free shot. She also played Happy Birthday by Stevie Wonder for me. She was extremely friendly and made us feel at home here. That sort of thing stands out when it comes to bars esp. since there are so many options in the area.

We went there on Friday night at 9 p.m. unfortunately most of the guys were drunk as a fiddler’s bitch and were slightly aggressive.
Nevertheless the barmaid is very nice and the draft beer price with $ 3 per glass is very low.

Sooooo. Later in the year I was back again. October I think it was. A Friday afternoon. Just before 5pm, so you’d reckon this place would be beginning to kick off. It was pretty empty, ten or so people in there, which was a little surprising but I’m not going to complain about that. What I am going to complain about is the lack of beers. Surprisingly they had no Corona, no Millers, and another bottled beer was also not available because they were out of them.
I can maybe understand one or two not being there but with the pitiful tap options (and a couple of those were missing too) it would make me think twice about pulling up a stool unless I knew they had something to offer. NOw, it was an old guy behind the bar and he was on his own so maybe he wasn’t able to restock but still. Poor effort Holland.

Just the sort of Dives I like. Simple, good selection of beer, friendly bartender. Been a while since I hit up this place, but still good.

Proper shitty perfect. Old school Hells Kitchen. I think the bartender taught the class. I forget his name as I leave bombed the 7 – 8 times I’ve been here. There a woman who tends bar as well and is very cool.
This is mostly locals and makes for great «observation» and sometimes conversation. It’s on the small side but cool to drink with roughly a dozen folks who quickly become friends.
Prices are on par with Hell’s Kitchen. And the jukebox is one of the best around. Big fan!

Grungy terrible people

A proper dive bar. May it stand forever.
Take every requisite qualification of a dive bar, sprinkle it with a fabulous jukebox, and top it with a stern yet wonderful and attentive older lady pouring the liquor and you have the Holland.
Not for the weak willed, faint of heart, or hipsters looking for a «dive bar» in quotation marks but for anyone looking for a dirty low down yet totally safe and harmless good time this is your spot.

Why 5 stars? Holland Bar is a dive bar. Dive bars are a good time. Holland Bar is a good time.
Stopped by here on the way to a classy rooftop party on a Saturday afternoon… simply because it seemed like a great idea at the time — which it most certainly was.
Get ready to sing «oldies but goodies» at the top of your lungs with the most eclectic crowd you can imagine. For some reason the random assortment of people just works. Some folks appear to be regulars, but the female bartender treats everyone as if they are at a home… that provides cheap drinks with quite the kick.
The entire bar said goodbye when I left and wished me well on my future classy ventures. Hopefully I can make it back to hang and sing with the «crew.»

I was visiting NYC with my brother and after dinner I suggested we have a drink. The hotel bar was depressing so I started searching on Unilocal for a bar near by. All I was finding was club settings and pubs, then I switch my search from BAR to DIVE BAR. «Holland Bar, half a block down the street, sounds like my kind of place.»
As soon as we walked in, there was a little skirmish that popped up. I asked the bartender what the beef was over and he said «juke box credit.» Classic… We became very comfortable very fast.
The Holland Bar is great and a real throw back to old school midtown; one of the last bastions if not the last. I would guess the room is 12′ wide, 70′ long including the head. There is seating for two dozen, max. As another poster stated, mostly male clientele who enjoy one another company.
I went twice while visiting and both nights, the bartender Raymond was holding court, entertaining, enforcing, serving the group and I may as well throw in enabling. After a couple of rounds, he had this «trap» of sorts with alternating «buy back» drinks between the two of us. At some point, I just had to fold ‘em.
Next time I am in NYC, I will go out of my way to grab a drink here.
BTW, this place has nothing to do with a sports bar, that’s a misclassification.

I had foreign friends in town this weekend and wanted to show them a good, cheap time at a real nyc dive bar.
I arrived early and immediately though to myself «JESUS. I made a bad choice». So, since I was already there, I ordered my cheap, strong, not-​tasty drink (bourbon and ginger to those wondering), paid the angry-​face bartender lady $ 5 cash, slammed it, and bee lined it through the stinky middle-​aged derelict crowd of mostly men some of which were fighting over a bar stool and some of which were giving me creepy stares. I met my friends at the door and advised they breathe through their mouth and run the other direction.
It was 8pm.
Although I truly appreciate a good dive bar, this was not fun for me.

Your ability to enjoy Holland Bar might be directly related to your ability to endure loud people in a cramped setting. When I visited, a gaggle of drunk 19 year olds attempting to dance seductively to Beast of Burden at 3pm held court. I tend to default to a minimum of 3 stars with these kind of places, partly because there’s nowhere left in NYC to drink anymore that isn’t totally unreasonable. A beer at Holland is $ 3 and comes with complimentary popcorn and baseball — you could do a lot worse in Manhattan (especially these days).
At the heel of the hunt, Holland Bar isn’t worth travelling to, but it’s an acceptable shout after a 5 hour bus ride when you don’t feel like paying $ 7 for a Guinness or $ 12 for a glass of Merlot.

Haha interesting crowd here. Stopped in as a part of a bar crawl and first thing I realized was how tight and narrow the place was. We were a pretty big group so we took over the bar instantly. They have Mcsorley’s pale ale on tap for 5 bucks, which is awesome. It’s good beer right there and that was really all I had.
The bartender was an older gentleman but he was so excited to see us and couldn’t wait to get us drinks. It’s nice to get that kind of attention at bar to fulfill our thirsty needs!

Surprised at the size… small…Hell, it is a cruel joke to fat people. But, it reminded me of my beloved Napper Tandy’s (gone) which was an old man armpit of a bar that served minors because we were the better dart players on the league. *shrug*.
I just couldn’t order wine in this place. Had to order a beer. I found myself wanting to smoke. And burp. And spit. Everyone looks unapproachable and mean, but they all flew out of their way to offer me their stool. I loved it here and wowser, it is cheap?! Don’t expect top shelf. Don’t go there to be seen. Bring cash. It’s a dive bar. Dive right in.