Matthew Roff isn't just the co-owner of Park Slope venue Southpaw, he also recently opened up Crown Heights's first beer garden, Franklin Park. Not satisfied with that, he also went in as co-owner of the (soon to be) old Galapagos space -- where he'll be opening a new venue called Natural Selection. He recently told us a little about what to expect from the latter space, as it reopens under his control. How did the......

Southpaw owner Matt Roff is awfully busy opening new bars and venues lately (hopefully not nearby any nit-picky neighbors). As he works on the Galapagos space transformation, he somehow fit in opening up a beer garden last Friday in Crown Heights. Franklin Park is a 2,000-sq-ft beer garden (with 1,200-sq-ft of outdoor space) housed in a former mechanic's garage (à la Fette Sau) located at 618 St. John's Place in Brooklyn. Their website serves......

Itching to jump back into Liberty City yet? The New GTA IV website has been launched, in preparation for the quickly approaching April release. The previews so far have been somewhat light on details, but the site finally sheds some light into what kind of trouble you can expect to get into while traversing a virtual NYC. To start, our virtual Queens is a land called "Dukes." Here, we've got a baseball team not so......

The “Beer Kir” at Marco Moreira’s 15 East is a Japanese beer-based mixed drink: Sapporo is floated on a shot of honeyed sweet potato vinegar, adding a sweet-sour edge to the dry lager. For the purposes of home experimentation, we found Benímosu ($11.35 for 4 oz.), the same artisanal vinegar used in Beer Kir at Katagiri, a Japanese food store on 59th Street. Made in Kyoto from purple potatoes and koji rice, Benímosu has clean,......

The long-awaited opening of Radegast Hall & Biergarten, Brooklyn’s first old-timey beer hall, is finally upon us, just in time for… winter. The 2,000 square foot establishment is designed to feel like a turn-of-the-century Austro-Hungarian beer hall, with a retractable roof canopy, 32-foot high ceilings, communal tables made from 150-year-old barn wood, a seasonal grill and 13 varieties of beer on tap, as well as a wider array of exotic-sounding bottled beer, such as the......

No news is bad news when it comes to the long-delayed opening of Radegast Hall & Biergarten, the new 2,000 square foot Williamsburg bar owned by the savvy Czechs who run Astoria’s Bohemian Hall. The establishment, designed to feel like a turn-of-the-century Austro-Hungarian beer hall, has been physically ready for business since Oktoberfest, but owners have been hung up on various permits and paperwork. The last hurdle was supposedly the certificate of occupancy, which......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a commercial robbery on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, a suspicious fire on Renwick St. in Manhattan, and an "air-mail incident" at Union St. and Franklin Ave in Brooklyn. We can't wait to hear what that possibly means. Six men were murdered Saturday morning in New York City. Separately! The Times reports that patrons of the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden don't know what they're enthusiastically drinking to at a......

Who doesn’t make a mistake every now and then? To err is human, right? But what matters in the end is if you get called out on it. When (if) you do, you should probably apologize and make right. Well, we got called out last week. To celebrate National Beer Month we decided to feature a beer that we thought was pretty good, Red Hook Sunrye Summer Ale. Now we don’t expect every reader to......

Last week, Clinton Hill Blog founder Robin Lester posted her findings of a trip taken to the Greenpoint Beer Works, a large brick industrial tucked away on Brooklyn’s Waverly Avenue between Fulton and Atlantic. She and another blog reader met up with operations director and brewer Kelly Taylor, who revealed that in addition to filling Greenpoint’s regular daily work order for Heartland Brewery, he has also been developing his own small batch beer, Kelso......

Close your eyes for a moment (Crap, I guess this doesn’t work as well in print – maybe have a friend/co-worker with a soothing yet textured voice read the first paragraph to you). Ok, now imagine a magical land where each place you went, greeted you with a frosty beverage. Turn right and there’s a fine crafted, small production stout, straight ahead a zesty, refreshing Hefeweizen and perhaps a nutty, spicy ale and behind......

If you were thinking about a fun afternoon at the Bohemian Beer Garden in Queens, think again, sucka! Joey in Astoria says the line has been around the block for the last few weekends: It looks to me like those good ole relaxing days down at the beer garden just might be over. There has been talk for the past couple of years of how the crowd has been getting more and more "manhattan-ish"......

We know that all back gardens are not created equal. They are useful for for pretending you aren't still addicted to cigarettes or can keep your hands off your date in front of your friends. Some, like the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden in Astoria are nearly always packed, others, like Commonwealth in Park Slope are a welcome addition to an established great neighborhood bar and yet others, like the promised back garden area of......

September 12: Save New Orleans Cocktail Hour Restaurants and bars across the nation including Employees Only, Freeman's, and Flatiron Lounge in New York will serve New Orleans classic cocktails like the Pimm's Cup, the Hurricane, and the Sazerac from 5 to 7 p.m. All receipts from the $10 drinks will be donated to a relief fund established by the Museum of the American Cocktail, Go to the website for a full list of participants. September......

When the weather turns warm (finally!) Gothamist heeds the cooling call of tiny bubbles. Champagne? Heck, no! Brewsky. There's nothing like downing a beatiful, frosty mug of ale, lager or weisse on a warm spring afternoon or evening. And, here's our list of some of New York's finest spots to grab said brewsky - with extra points given to Spuyten Duyvil, The Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden and d.b.a. for their outdoor spaces: Spuyten Duyvil......

This week's food events have a heavy Brooklyn emphasis -- get out there and represent, yo. Thursday, October 14 -- A Taste for Democracy This one's tonight, folks! The Taste of Democracy is organized by Citizen Action of New York’s Volunteer2004.org campaign. At the event, volunteers will be able to sign up for phone banks calling voters in the battleground states from New York City and for traveling by bus or car to door-knock in......

Jessica Lappin, City Council Candidate...

Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden was highlighted in this weekend's NYT Travel section, as a great option for places to visit in the city (other than midtown) during the Republican convention: Venture into Queens to see an authentic beer garden, a great place to spend a sunny afternoon. The Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, at 29-19 24th Avenue in Astoria, (718) 274-4925, www.bohemianhall.com, was built in 1910, when hundreds of beer gardens dotted the city,......

NYers have a rep (well-deserved in most cases) for being blase and nonchalant about bizarre occurences that happen in city life (except for seeing naked people in the apartment across the way - that's always cause for a phone call to a friend) because that just the way it is. Except when it comes to tigers roaming city streets. That's why an escaped tiger escaped tiger stopped traffic in Queens. The 450 pound white tiger,......

Whitney Pastorek, Writer/Etc....