The 5 best bars to host a party in (or around) Park Slope

Draft Barn [VIA MICHAEL M. ON YELP]

If you've ever tried to gather your friends together for a party at a local bar in the neighborhood, you'll know there's not a lot of options of places to go to. Sure, there's a bar on every block in the Slope. But most of them are pretty packed on the regular, and don't have room for 20-or-more people who want to sing you "Happy Birthday" or eat homemade cupcakes or take pictures with the flash on all night long. 

But throughout the years, I've found a few places bars out there that are pretty perfect for large parties. Here are my top five spots!

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Pork Slope is having a Crab Boil and you're invited

Wednesday night is the perfect day of the week to start drinking, if you ask us. You've made it over the hump of the work week, and can probably make it through the next two days slightly hungover (Three cheers for 'Summer Fridays'). And while the summer may be winding down, there's still plenty of time to get out there and combine your drinking activities with some old fashioned summer fun. 

Which is why we're all about the Crab Boil Pork Slope is throwing tonight. Starting at 5pm, patrons can chow down on all the makings of a classic Crab Boil: blue crabs, potatoes, sausage, and corn. $28 gets you six crabs; $54 gets you 12. This is classic summer fun if we've ever heard of it (though we're sure chef Dale Talde will find a way to put his spin on it). And if all goes well tonight, the folks at Pork Slope are hoping to keep this going every Wednesday night for the rest of the summer. (Please please please please pleaaaaaasse). 

The Boil is also the first step in a slight menu-overhaul Dale Talde is bringing to Pork Slope. "We rotate items on the menu at Talde and Thistle Hill all the time," he told us last night. "But I haven't really played around with Pork Slope. I want to bring new items to the menu - seafood, BBQ, more pork - but do them the way I like to do them." From the twists on the traditional we've tasted at Talde's spots, we couldn't be more excited. (Though please Dale - don't get rid of the Irish Nachos. That's the food dreams are made of).  

Who's joining us tonight? 

Park Slope Taxi Tales, Part Two: Taxi Accident

[Via TheCarConnection.com]

This is the second part of a three-part series on my time driving a taxi out of the garage on 4th Avenue in Park Slope. Read Part One here! 

NYC cab drivers are known for driving like maniacs. I didn't. But there was this one time I did get into an accident...

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Cool or Not Cool: Cash-only Businesses?

[VIA CINDA ON ETSY]

I never have cash on me. Maybe it's because my bank (TD Bank) is ridiculoulsy far from my apartment AND my office AND basically everywhere I go all the time. And I super hate paying ATM fees. So unless I'm by some business that has a cash-back option (CVS, Target, etc), you can basically expect that I'll always want to pay with a card. 

Of course, not every business is down with the credit/debit swipe. And while I expect that smaller, independent businesses would roll that way (laundromats, barber shops - even coffee shops), it sort of annoys the fuck out of me when it happens at other places. Like, if I'm paying under $10, then sure, cash only. But if I'm spending more than $20 on my meal and I somehow have to drum up cash for that...I'm probably not coming to your restaurant again. 

Look, I get that credit cards charge a merchant fee for every transaction. And that that merchant fees can be anywhere from 1.5 to 3 percent (and often comes with a shit-ton of other fees attached to it). But there are alternatives that seem pretty affordable (like Square). And I've seen this trend where businesses that used to offer credit cards are moving to cash-only, and not adjusting their prices to reflect that. So that's pretty un-cool to me. 

What do you think? 

Now we all have to eat cake pops

Fabipops! [Photo by @mr_mookie and @creativityqas, via @fabipops on Instagram]

You guys. Everything is coming up cake pops. The balls of cake on a stick are the new cronuts, which are the new frozen yogurts, which are the new cupcakes. And since no trend truly exists unless it exists in Park Slope, you might not be ready to accept the cake pop as a trend because they did not exist in Park Slope until just now. Fabipops, a store dedicated to the newest dessert sensation, just opened an outpost in The Slope (60 4th Avenue, between Bergen and Dean St). And duh - they will sell you a cake pop if you want one. 

Now that you know what a cake pop is, did you know that you can have Fabipops make a cake pop that looks like your head? Did you know that you can get a cake pop emblazoned with the logo of your business or of your poorly-run transit system? Well you can. So, if this solves some sort of problem you were having about wanting someone to eat a cake voodoo doll of you, or of squandering shareholder money/taxpayer dollars on cake with a stick in it, well: "TA DA!"

Personally, I think cake pops are stupid, because:

(1) They are not pie and everyone knows that pie is superior to cake in every regard; and

(2) Everyone also knows that the only reason to put something on a stick and call it a "pop" is so that you can lick it. And licking cake is weird and wrong.

That having been said, I can't really make fun of this woman's business, because she had a young child who died of pneumonia. So, I guess we're all just going to have to lick cake on a stick, everybody!

Who's excited?