Zinc Bar

On our list of the best live music venues in New York.

Thelonious Monk played house piano here in the 1940s, when the room operated as the Cinderella Club and Billie Holiday sang from the same small stage. The building cycled through an after-hours club, a lesbian bar, and a comedy club before Zinc Bar's owners, who had watched the space for sixteen years, finally moved in. A red velvet curtain leads to a room where the tables sit close together around a small stage, and the booking runs wide: bossa nova, flamenco, salsa, and straight jazz depending on the night. A cover applies on some nights, on top of whatever's ordered at the bar.