Sharlene’s Bar

Sharlene’s, tucked between a wings joint and a Dominican restaurant, has been a bar for as long as anyone can remember—first as O’Reilly’s and then, starting in 1986, as Mooney’s, before Sharlene’s took over, seven years ago. Inside, a jukebox plays compilations like “Pure Disco” or “Holiday Songs that Don’t Suck,” which features six tracks from Gods of Fire’s “Hanukkah Gone Metal”; “Addams Family” and “Star Trek” pinball machines flash in the corner. The vinyl stools and linoleum-topped tables fill up with grizzled drinkers, staid couples in their sixties, and flannelled young professionals, all scruff and asymmetrical haircuts. A reassuringly dependable list of beers is augmented by some left-field concoctions, like the Grown-Up’s Chocolate Egg Cream: a sweet, tangy mix of vodka and Swiss Miss nostalgia. One evening, a bartender passed a pink binder of delivery menus across the bar, which runs the length of the room and is just the right amount of sticky. “You can get wings from next door, and we just ask that people clean up after themselves,” he said, then turned to serve two women with matching mullets and sweaters. On another night, an older man dressed entirely in beige sipped a glass of beige wine. An Australian bemoaned the binary state of American politics and debated, with his friend, how things would have changed if Kennedy had stayed President. Nearby, a man announced to a group of friends that Sarah was pregnant (again), and their applause and hoots blended in with Dean Martin’s “Mambo Italiano,” on the jukebox. ♦