Bartender, 85, Is Heart Of Old Time Chelsea Bar

MIDTOWN WEST, NY —At 8:50 a.m. on a Wednesday, bartender Benny Lynch sat on a stool at Billymark’s West, finishing his tea and tomato-cheese sandwich while thumbing through The New York Post.

“I read all the papers, hoping the Knicks and all the New York teams lose,” Lynch, who reports to work at the bar in a New England Patriots hat, said. “I like Boston — good Irish town.”

At 85 years old, Lynch is still the glue that holds one of Manhattan's most storied dive bars together.

Billymark's West, at the corner of 29th Street and Ninth Avenue, has been the subject of articles everywhere from The New Yorker to Time Out Magazine. It serves construction workers, office staff, rock fans waiting for a show at the Garden and anybody else in the neighborhood looking for a no-frills place.

Most nights, customers are served and entertained by brothers Mark and Billy Penza, who co-own the bar. Billy offers a free musical performance, belting out lyrics from classic songs by James Brown and The Rolling Stones.

A long wooden bar lines the left-hand side of the room. Behind it: an array of liquor bottles, beer and an old banger cash register that rings when a sale is made. There are no beer taps, only bottles and cans are on offer. A pool table sits in the back right-hand corner and a dart board hangs on the wall to the right of the entrance.

"It's just real," customer Ejazz Shamid, 28, said while drinking a vodka soda at the bar.

"I used to go to other bars in Midtown. You could barely get a drink. Here, you have space. They know what I drink."

And it's made possible, in large part, because of Lynch.

"He has been the bridge to our longevity," co-owner Mark recently said from behind the bar. "Prior to him, we went through bartenders like tissue paper, until we could find somebody solid to come to work so we could get some time off."

The bar has four employees: the two co-owners, Lynch and another bartender nicknamed Thunderbolt. It closes at 4 a.m. and opens at 8 a.m. every day except for Sunday. Lynch works the 8 a.m. shift on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Without him, the brothers said they wouldn’t be able to keep the hours.

Lynch has worked as a bartender in West Midtown for the better part of half a century: 28 years at the Blarney Stone on Eighth Avenue near 31st Street and 13 years at Billymark’s West. He came to the U.S. from Ireland, with a stop in London, in 1960 and worked as a carpenter in New York before starting at the Blarney Stone.

Co-owner Billy met Lynch there and offered him the day-time position at Billymark’s West soon after.

"He came in, he looked at the bar, and he said 'ok, I got it.'" Billy said of Lynch’s first day. “I'm walking out the door, I don't know his last name, I don't have his phone number, I didn't tell him any of the prices, and he just took it in like he was here forever."

Lynch is 85 but looks a decade younger, something he chalks up to a diet that includes healthy amounts of Guinness and mashed potatoes. He takes the express bus from his home in Kew Gardens to the bar — and stops at 7 a.m. mass at St. Francis of Assisi beforehand.

Each morning at the bar, he takes the bottles off the shelves and dusts them. He then sprays the bar down with cleaning solution. The bar sports an A rating from the health department, an achievement Lynch said he’s responsible for.

At about 9 a.m. on a recent Wednesday, the bar was empty except for Lynch.

“Some mornings it’s like what it is now,” Lynch said through his strong Irish accent.

“Years ago, all the places were open at 8 o’clock and there was a good morning business. The railroad guys would come around, the post-office workers. The women from the P.O. would go into bars where there was a bookie hangout in the morning. You know, taking numbers.”

But as the industrial west side of Manhattan has given way to condos and office buildings, the pre-noon crowd at neighborhood bars has dwindled, Lynch said.

But Lynch has no intention of calling it quits any time soon.

“A lot of people retire and go home and sit down, everything changes,” he said. “I still feel like 25. I don’t get tired. I feel better when I come down to the bar.”

And the co-owners would be the most distraught if he did want to leave.

“The only thing I wish about Benny is that he was 20 years younger,” Mark said.

Photo credit: Ben Feuerherd