Max Bet, a shore-themed bar, to complement Gowanus’ shuffleboard mainstay

What happens when three good friends open a bar together for the first time?

During my first visit to 317 3rd Ave., the up-and-coming Atlantic City-themed bar, Shania’s Max Bet, is still largely under construction. A massive disco ball sits in a gargantuan cardboard box. The bar seats are wrapped in tidy plastic wrap and sidled next to a tower of zebra print upholstery. Co-owner Robin Daily is quick to point out the mirrored tiles that he is currently masoning to the shock pink walls and general manager Jericho Davidson leads me to a translucent tarp before he uncovers his own creation—a bar panel made from 20,000 dice encased in resin.

“We’re maximalists,” says Davidson. “I wanted this back room to look like the inside of an ‘80s limo.”
Welcome to Shania’s Max Bet, named partially for a group chat used by Daily and Davidson during their decade-plus working together at neighboring Gowanus shuffleboard club, Royal Palms.

Another co-owner, Mike Brown, came into this crew by happenstance. “He was one of the few regulars to infiltrate the group chat,” says Davidson, who first met Mike around ten years ago as a shuffleboarding regular. Brown was eventually added to the Royal Palms’ working group chat, “Max Bet,” and even joined in on the storied Friendsgiving pilgrimages to Atlantic City—the leading inspiration for the bar’s theme.

“‘Max Bet’ was locked in because that’s what we already call ourselves,” Daily says of the bar’s namesake. “And I was like, let’s think of a name…”

“…And Shania Twain is hot like me and Canadian like Robin!” Davidson chimes in.

“The funny thing about it is we were going to go to Sharlene’s on Flatbush and Mike called it Shania’s by accident,” Daily clarifies. “And we were like, Shania’s Max Bet!”

The bar will occupy what was once the beloved cocktail bar Dirty Precious, whose closing in August of 2025 gave the trio their opportunity to launch a first bar together.

“We’ve talked about it for years and then when this space came available I was like, ‘Wait are we gonna actually do this?’” says Daily. He and Davidson schemed to open their own bar someday while working bartending shifts and knew of Brown’s similar lifelong dream. The location was both perfect and familiar.

“We have so many ties to the neighborhood,” says Davidson, who had frequented Dirty Precious. Over more than a decade of working in bars in Gowanus, he has come to appreciate the level of community and friendship that bartenders can facilitate. In fact, this trio is proof that life-changing friendships can truly be born out of becoming a bar’s regular customer.

“[Daily and Davidson] are great at making people enjoy themselves and they’re great at creating an atmosphere that allows people to have a really [dang] fun time,” Brown says of the duo who will reliably be tending the bar upon opening. Patrons can expect a drink menu with an array of old-school-but-well-made casino-esque drinks like Midori sours and Long Island iced teas alongside light bar bites.

It’s clear that the bar, even in its unfinished state, is a labor of friendship and care. A few loose miniature toy hundred-dollar bills sit on the floor alongside the construction dust, remnants of a small birthday gathering for co-owner Brown the day prior. The crew is having fun together building Shania’s, and they want folks to come by and share in it.

“Bars are a hub. And that’s just something that’s always been amazing to me, you know?” says Davidson while seated next to his two friends-turned-business-partners. “A.I. ain’t ever coming for this job.”

Shania’s Max Bet is scheduled to open mid-July. Those who visit shouldn’t be surprised if they find themselves staying until 4 a.m., holding a Midori sour in one hand and shaking the bar’s custom red dice in the other.