Park Slope’s Top Happy Hour Eats

There are few finer ways to celebrate making it to the end of another workday than a nice little drink of something—and all the better if that little something is discounted to reward you for making it out of the office at a reasonable hour.

Since, in my experience, a single after-work toast usually ends up extending long into the night, it’s generally a good strategy to start your carousing somewhere that also offers an incentive to pack in some tasty solids as well. Here are our favorite spots for great happy hour snacks.

Is there a food more appropriate for the joyous early evening hours than hot wings? Surely not. At Park Slope Alehouse, the stalwart sudsing-pen on Sixth Avenue and Fifth Street, you can get a solid rendition of the sports-bar favorite for 50 cents a piece during happy hour, which goes from 4 to 7 p.m. every day except on Tuesday, when it lasts all night. Drinks are $1 off.

Central Europeans are champion drinkers, and they know how to accessorize a stein of beer with just the right meat. Show up before 7 p.m. at the Austrian bar Der Kommissar, on Fifth Avenue near Fifteenth Street, and pair one of their eight house sausages with a beer for $10. Wash down a mild weisswurst or the spicy bratwurst with a Kostritzer Schwartz or Ramstein Double Platinum, and round out your meal with a pretzel and liptauer cheese spread ($5). Before you call it a night, you might want to explore Der Kommissar’s selection of schnaps. Alles klar! 

A couple of blocks down Fifth Avenue near 12th Street, perennial favorite Tacos Nuevo Mexico offers an early-bird special of two-for-one Tecates, $5 well drinks, and three-for-two margaritas. While the food isn’t discounted, their antojitos like tamales ($2.50 to $3.50), flautas (three for $4.50) and tacos ($2.75 to $3.50) are cheap enough (and good grief, tasty enough) to warrant some mention on this list. You’ll have to start early, though, since Taco Nuevo Mexico’s happy hour runs from 3 to 6:30 p.m.

Melt’s chic Bergen Street spacelounge (between Fifth Avenue and Flatbush) offers a beguiling assortment of small plates for $3.50 a pop during its daily 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. happy hour. The treats include scrumptiously offbeat compositions like bacon-wrapped jalapenos, tempura green beans and ricotta and shitake quesadillas, in addition to straightforward classics like Malpeque oysters and mac-and-cheese. Drink specials include $5 cocktails, $4 pints, and $2 off any glass of wine.

In addition to having the most euphonious name in the neighborhood, Miriam (on Fifth Avenue and Warren) hosts one of the best happy hours in the city. Two-for-one drinks make the excellent cocktails (already reasonable at their usual $8) a steal, and the same deal for food brings you eight mezes for $10. Though the portions are little more than a few bites each, you can get a pretty solid meal and a couple of cocktails for less than $20. It might take you a couple of nights to work your way through the long list of elegant little snacks, but be sure to try the zucchini cake in yogurt sauce, the spicy calamari with chickpea salad, the kadaif-wrapped shrimp in harissa aioli, and the meatballs in pomegranate sauce. The catch: the happy hour deal, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 5 to 7p.m. on weekends, is only available at the restaurant’s small bar, which can quickly fill up. So let’s keep this one a secret, okay?