East Village Bar Famed For Shots Deal To Become Offices: Report

EAST VILLAGE, NY — The longtime East Village bar Continental is closing next year and will be developed into an office building, the bar’s owner announced this week.

The bar, located at 25 Third Ave., has existed under different names in the East Village for nearly thirty years, and is famous for its shot deals. Continental offers one of the best boozy bargains in NYC, with a round-the-clock 5 shots-for-$12 special.

Until recently, the bar’s shot deal sold for just $10. Up until 2006, the bar was also a popular venue for live shows.

Continental owner Trigger Smith posted a letter to the bar’s website this week announcing it’s future closure. He said demolition would begin after August 2018.

“It's truly heartbreaking that we and so many Old Skool places are falling by the wayside but unless you own your building that's how it goes,” he wrote.

Continental and its two neighboring buildings will be demolished and turned into a “boutique office building,” The Real Deal was first to report last week.

City documents show that the developer Real Estate Equities Corporation paid $29,116,000 to take over the lease at 25 Third Ave., which houses Continental, in addition to buying out the lease for the two neighboring buildings at 3 St. Marks Place and 23 Third Ave. for the same price, $29,116,000 each.

The Real Deal reported that Real Estate Equities Corporation plans to raze all three buildings and replace them with a single, seven-story office building, plus retail space on the ground floor.

The news of Continental’s demise, along with its neighbors Korilla and Papaya King, is yet another blow to the East Village. The neighborhood, like others in Manhattan, has repeatedly seen locally-owned businesses close as spiraling rents and the rise of online retail have battered small businesses on both sides.

Smith joked in his goodbye letter that he wanted to "thank Jeff Bezos for not selling Beer."

He also added that patrons should not hate his landlords.

“They're older now, got a great deal and I can't blame them,” he wrote.

Patch was not immediately able to reach Real Estate Equities Corporation, the buildings’ new owners, for comment on their plans for the space. No building plans have yet been filed with the city.

In 2010, the bar was accused of having a racist door policy. Protestors accused the bar, which has an “unwritten” dress code, of turning away patrons because they were black, neighborhood blog EVGrieve reported at the time. The city’s Commission on Human Rights investigated multiple complaints of discrimination at the bar, but couldn't substantiate any of the complaints.

Lead image via Google Maps