Medusa Bar

On our list of the best cocktail bars in New York.

618 Grand Street held Bushwick Country Club, a dive bar with a mini-golf course out back, before Medusa took the room over in 2023 and kept its exposed brick and stone tile, adding snake-scale diamond wallpaper and a matching neon-green light strip under the bar. Seven owners, some with roots at Our Wicked Lady, built the art-deco space around Greek mythology's Medusa, framed here as a survivor rather than a monster. Cocktails and small bites make up the regular menu, backed by weekly food pop-ups, and a solar-lit backyard planted with New York perennials gives the room somewhere to spread into.