A pony walks into a bar…

A pony walks into a bar … no, wait, a pony owns the bar.

Pony’s, a new cocktail bar and café from couple and co-owners Elana Shvalbe and Michael Furac, opened on August 22 at 424 Van Brunt St.

Visiting Pony’s, one might expect a bar with obvious swings at horse-isms. Maybe some sort of polo mallet leaning lazily in a corner. or perhaps black-and-white vintage photography of award-winning show ponies in neat, little frames. Instead visitors will find a space more akin to the living-slash-dining room of a cool design-forward friend: a welcoming center island, a comfy low slung couch, a large, colorful abstract painting opposite the front door.

“We really wanted to make it feel like people were coming over to our house,” Shvalbe notes of the couple’s first brick-and-mortar. Then she began pointing out different pieces of furniture around the room and how they relate to both her design vision and their talented friends’ repertoires—from the fonts used on the menus and the small wooden dining tables, to the giant canvas artwork.

Shvalbe’s prior career in production design enabled her to draft the designs for nearly everything in the bar—the couch, tables, cabinets, and shelves. Once her designs were drawn, she called on friends to bring them to life: “My friend Jesse made all the couches, our friends PJ and Lauren in Montreal made all the tables and the counter, my friend Anna made all the red sconces …” 

The things not crafted by friends were thoughtfully selected, like some petite plaid stools that Shvalbe found and re-upholstered from the Brimfield Antique Flea Market in Massachusetts. 

Even the custom cherrywood handle on the front door was thoughtfully selected. “Make sure you touch it on the way out,” Furac urges.

The couple had dipped their toes into bar ownership once before. In Guelph, Canada, they’d created a tiny bar that opened after hours in a barbershop. It had a six-month run before the couple moved to the United States in 2022. 

The location of Pony’s, albeit slightly more conventional, was a pairing of good luck and timing. 

“When we started thinking about starting this, we were definitely not ready … but I was always looking at properties just to get an understanding of cost and area. I saw this [location] online and was like, ‘This is crazy’,” Shvalbe recalls.

Her first wood shop was near 424 Van Brunt St., and during her inaugural trek to Red Hook she passed by the former yoga studio’s storefront and admired its yellow front door. Once Furac and Shvalbe decided it was time to start making moves on their dream to open a bar, the venue was a clear frontrunner.

“We’re like, I guess we have to be ready.”

And the fate of the iconic yellow door?

“Same door, different paint.”

In a neighborhood with several beer and wine options, Furac and Shvalbe seek to offer more unexpected beverages; say, spirits aged in an 18th-century style still, bonded whiskey, and a divine Pococo daiquiri, made using in-house milk-clarified rum. Furac fat-washes Pony’s own peanut butter rum for the Double R Old Fashioned, as well.

Pony’s Sans Spirits menu offers mocktails: some feature a house-made gin alternative made with steeped linden tea, juniper berries, green peppercorns, and an array of spices.“We’re trying to mimic the flavor of spirits through a variety of spices, so we make our own ‘gin’ in-house,” Furac explains. He wants to offer beverages that go beyond the glib “this is basically just flavored lemonade” style of N/A drinks that many bars lean on. 

Meanwhile, the food menu is heavily influenced by the meals Shvalbe’s family shares together, as her parents are from modern-day Ukraine and Latvia.

“I grew up with a lot of Russian dumplings, sour cream salads, pickled fish … so that’s what we’re trying to bring,” she says.

The Russian Dinner Party is a plate of potato, butter, pickled herring, and a slice of white onion, served alongside a shot of vodka. Furac tells me about the appetizer’s tradition: “They’ll do a half hour of people eating that and shooting vodka and then the dinner actually starts. So, at tables, if you’re a four-top, everyone would get one. You would all take the bite together and take the shot together. And if you’re at [Shvalbe’s] house, someone would have said a toast just before.”

When it comes to dessert, Shvalbe is trained in the French tradition of cooking. Furac raves about the menu’s nougat glacé and describes it layer by sumptuous layer: frozen Italian meringue, whipped cream, caramel, pistachios.

Pony’s tentative happy hour, as Furac puts it, is a mashup of a Parisian cafe and a cocktail bar: “You just come at 4 o’clock, have a spritz or some vermouth, smoke a cigarette outside, and go to dinner afterwards.” In addition to the European vibes, one can expect a special menu with $12 and $14 cocktails. 

Pony’s is officially open to the public and offers cocktails, beer, wine as well as an assortment of small plates and desserts. Pony up to a bar seat (sorry) and order a round of Russian Dinner Parties Tuesday through Sunday (check their Instagram for variable hours).