A date night in Gowanus

In search of the perfect date night in Gowanus, my girlfriend and I had a simple goal: find a few good drinks, something to eat, a dance floor and, ideally, not spend a small fortune.

First Stop: Liar Liar 

Our first stop was just a few blocks from the F train, at the corner of Nevins Street and Sackett Street, where Liar Liar sits as the lone finished building amid a neighborhood still thick with construction.

Walking west on Union Street, we passed rows of brownstones shaded by trees and front yards still lush in the late-summer sun. We crossed the Union Street bridge over the Gowanus Canal as skyscrapers in downtown Brooklyn looked down upon us. This was my girlfriend’s first time in Gowanus, and going over the bridge she asked, “is this the poop canal?” 

Before I had an opportunity to answer, the smell of the city’s infamous superfund site hit, and answered that question for her. 

For this night out, we deliberately skipped some of Gowanus’ better-known destinations. Public Records, while appealing, charges a door fee on some nights, while a shuffleboard court at Royal Palms can cost around $60. Both are great options for a group of friends, but for a two-person date they felt like more of a financial commitment to one spot than we were looking for.

Keeping things as affordable as possible while still having a good time was as important to us as I’m sure it is for most young couples just barely scraping by in the city today. So we approached the night with that mindset. 

Outside the bar were dozens of picnic tables all full with a mix of families bringing their children out for dinner and friends catching up over bottles of wine and small plates. The interior of the bar features white brick walls, vintage posters lining them, and long rows of wine bottles resting in racks above the two bars. The kitchen was open in the back so you could see, and smell, your food as it’s being made. We grabbed a table inside next to a set of open floor to ceiling glass windows and our night had officially begun. 

We had heard good things about the bar’s martinis from a mutual friend and regular, but a mezcal punch caught our attention instead. We each ordered one, along with fries and broccolini to put some food in our stomachs before the drinking really got underway.

The staff fit the unofficial uniform of young Brooklyn hospitality workers: stylish, heavily tattooed and deadly efficient when it comes to moving through the dining room. 

The atmosphere felt less like a neighborhood dive and more like a polished restaurant-bar designed for the Gowanus of the future that’s crystallizing in the minds of the developers quickly blanketing the area in new development. Perhaps once its neighbors are no longer under construction, Liar Liar will feel more at home. Either way its the type of place where one could easily spend a few hours and rack up a huge bill in the process. 

We managed to avoid that fate … kind of. 

Two cocktails and two orders of sides came to $77 before tip.

It wasn’t exactly cheap, but for a first stop — drinks, food and a well decorated place to sit and relax after a long week — we both walked away happy.

Running total: $77

Stop Two: Canal Bar

For our second stop, we headed toward Canal Bar on Third Avenue, looking for something a little less polished.

We found it.

The bar is a study in dive-bar maximalism: dark wood, Christmas lights and flags celebrating Chicago sports draped across the walls and ceiling. The music was low enough to talk over, and a television in the back was on but showing nothing.

The bartender chatted with what appeared to be a group of his friends while a few other lone patrons nursed beers at the bar.

I ordered a beer. My girlfriend ordered a margarita.

The bartender told her he “doesn’t do that.”

I could appreciate the commitment to beer-and-shot fundamentals, but my girlfriend was less impressed.

So we settled into the outdoor patio with a beer to share and watched the last of the daylight disappear over Gowanus. The beer was cheap and, perhaps because of that, tasted especially good.

After one drink, we moved on.

Sometimes a date-night itinerary is less about finding the perfect bar than figuring out when’s the right time to leave one.

Running Total: $83

Stop Three: Shania’s Max Bet

Just down the street, tucked inside an unassuming gray storefront, was the night’s wild card: Shania’s Max Bet, an Atlantic City-themed bar opened this summer by former employees of Royal Palms. (Check out our story on the opening here.)

My girlfriend is drawn to disco balls like a moth to a flame, so the giant one hanging over the main floor immediately won her over. In the back, a dance floor sits beneath a ceiling covered almost entirely in smaller disco balls.

After the subdued atmosphere at Canal Bar, the change was dramatic and exactly what we needed to blow off the little remaining energy we had after a full week.

The menus were among the best-designed I’ve seen in the city, filled with colorful cocktails accompanied by playful descriptions. I ordered a Midori sour—a drink I hadn’t had since I was a freshman in college—largely because seeing it on the menu triggered a wave of nostalgia for a more juvenile time in my life. 

My girlfriend opted for a glass of the bar’s driest orange wine.

The music kept the room moving, and after a couple of drinks we eventually made our way onto the dance floor. 

The bar was busy when we came in, and more patrons trickled in as the night went on. We felt like some of the younger people in the bar, but that worked in our favor. The older, largely millennial crowd seemed to lack the generational disease that plagues many of my fellow Gen Zers: a debilitating anxiety of dancing in public for fear of embarrassing yourself and ending up a social media laughing stock.

Couples and groups at nearby tables routinely jumped up to dance along to the 2000s hits and 70s disco playing that night, making it easy for us to join in. We eventually made our way to the dance floor in the back, where we could shake out the last vestiges of anxiety and stress from the week.

Two cocktails at Max Bet came to just over $30.

That brought our running total to about $114.

Running total: $114

Stop Four: Whisk & Whiskey 

After about an hour of sipping and dancing, we spilled back onto Sixth Avenue.

It was around 11p.m., but the streets were surprisingly quiet compared with Williamsburg or Lower Manhattan on a Friday night. There were still people outside the bars and restaurants, but the neighborhood didn’t feel overwhelmed by nightlife.

That turned out to be one of the more striking things about Gowanus.

For all the talk about the neighborhood becoming the next big Brooklyn destination, it still felt, at least on this night, like a place that hadn’t lost its breathing room.

We were looking for somewhere to end the night. My girlfriend had one request: dessert.

Luckily, just a block away on Fourth Avenue was Whisk & Whiskey, a combination bar and bakery.

At this point, we were ready for something a little quieter.

Inside, two other couples sat at the bar, apparently deep into date nights of their own. We ordered another mezcal cocktail—what drew us to this sinister, smoky spirit on this night I could not say—and a slice of birthday cake in celebration of nothing in particular.

We settled into their backyard, which we had entirely to ourselves. We lay back on the couch in each other’s arms and enjoyed the night air, losing track of time before finally packing up for the trek home to Northern Brooklyn.  

An Affordable Night?

By the end of the night, our total came to $143, excluding tips and subway fare.

That works out to roughly $71.50 per person—not exactly a cheap night out, but considerably less than what a date involving dinner, cocktails and a ticketed activity can easily cost elsewhere in the city.

And in the end, what more can one ask for than the night we had. We ate. We drank. We danced. We sat outside watching the sunset. We crossed the canal, wandered through the neighborhood and ended the night with dessert.

Gowanus may no longer be the industrial backwater it once was, but it hasn’t yet become the prohibitively expensive nightlife destination that some Brooklyn neighborhoods have. For young couples willing to skip the pricier attractions and mix a few splurges with some cheaper drinks, there is still room to have a full night out without completely emptying your bank account.

And perhaps that’s Gowanus’ sweet spot right now: a neighborhood in transition that still leaves a little room for people who can’t afford to spend like they’re already living in its future.