New York has never met a piece of nostalgia it couldn’t turn into a bar—and Bernie & Herb’s may be the city’s latest and most entertaining example.
Tucked into 28 E. 16th Street in Union Square, Bernie & Herb’s opened July 31 in part of the former Coffee Shop space, giving one of downtown’s most recognizable corners a decidedly less corporate—and considerably more fun—second act.
The bar comes from a trio with ties to the legendary Lower East Side dive 169 Bar, and that DNA is immediately apparent. Think cheap drinks, a jukebox, colorful lights, faux palm trees and the general feeling that nobody here is particularly interested in impressing your LinkedIn profile.
And then there are the prices, which in modern-day Manhattan qualify as something between refreshing and suspicious. Well drinks run around $9, classic cocktails $13, and a beer-and-shot combo is just $9. Happy hour from 2 to 7 p.m. makes things even friendlier to your wallet. There are also $3 hot dogs, because apparently someone in New York still remembers that a bar snack doesn’t need to cost $19.
The interior sounds like a fever dream assembled by someone who raided a 1970s beach bar, a neighborhood dive and a Nathan’s concession stand. There’s even a lava lamp and a hot-dog machine, because subtlety has apparently been permanently banned.
But perhaps the biggest nostalgia play is still to come: the iconic neon Coffee Shop sign, saved after the restaurant closed in 2018, is expected to return above the building once the scaffolding comes down.
In a city increasingly obsessed with $22 cocktails and reservation gymnastics, Bernie & Herb’s feels like a welcome rebellion. It’s cheap, loud, weird and wonderfully unpretentious—which, frankly, might be exactly what Union Square ordered.
