Every couple months or so you get the urge and you can’t fight it. Or your friends all do, and you do fight it, but you lose. Love it or hate it, karaoke has become a part of your nightlife just as unavoidable as occasionally sleeping with the worst possible person, so you might as well make the best (and the drunkest) of it. Luckily, you don’t have to go it alone; we’ve got the scoop on the best karaoke bars.
Winnie’s
104 Bayard St. (Baxter & Mulberry Sts.)
Chinatown 212.732.2384
There’s something soothing about knowing that any night of the week at 8pm you can get your karaoke rocks off in Chinatown. Locals mix with hipsters and the result is Chinese pop songs alternating with more traditional picks. Sometimes the sounds are pleasant, and sometimes they’re not, but the cheap drinks will help you to relax your oh-so-discriminating ear.
Karaoke One 7
29 W. 17th St. (5th & 6th Aves.)
Flatiron 212.675.3527
This place specializes in offering a variety of different rooms, all of different sizes. You can rock out with everybody you know, sing-along with a couple of your best buds, serenade a lone lover, or drink and sing all by yourself (whatever gets you through the night, pal). Naturally, Karaoke One 7 offers a very wide selection of songs—they’ve got 80,000 songs in 13 languages and they get more every week—so no matter who you’re singing to make sure to go beyond the same old, tired, predictable picks.
Hank’s Saloon
46 3rd Ave. (@ Atlantic Ave.)
Boerum Hill 718.625.8003
Not only is Hank’s the only honky tonk on our list, but it’s also the only place that offers karaoke brought to you by…a live band! Giddy up on over on Monday nights for “Kuntry Karaoke” or cruise over in your kickass mobile for Rockstar Karaoke on Wednesday nights. Pick your poison or go to both nights (you can rest up on Tuesday), but whatever you do, don’t expect a high-falutin’ attitude and hoity-toity drinks. Hank’s is all about having the rootin’est, tootin’est good time you can imagine. Of course, there’s never a cover.
Apple Restaurant & Bom Bar
17 Waverly Pl. (Greene & Mercer Sts.)
Greenwich Village 212.473.8888
All of your friends were disillusioned when they didn’t get picked for American Idol, and spending an evening with them at a normal karaoke joint is filled with bitching about other people’s voices and how long they have to wait until they can go on stage. Apple Restaurant & Bom Bar has your problem solved. Parties of 16 or more can reserve “The Red Den”—their private karaoke room with state-of-the-art sound quality. You can even design your own menu. They do require a $100 deposit and significant advance notice.
Lucky Cheng’s
24 1st Ave. (1st & 2nd Sts.)
East Village 212.995.5500
If you don’t think a night of karaoke is complete until you’ve encountered hordes of wild, amped up drag queens, Lucky Cheng’s is the place for you. It says something about this place that they also have a location in Vegas. Highbrow it ain’t, but fun and rollicking it is—their motto is “The more you drink, the better you sing.” They do karaoke every night of the week, but on weekends they put on shows. That's another article entirely.
~Josh Jackson
