Named after a 1751 print by English artist William Hogarth to illustrate the merits of drinking beer over gin, Beer Street began as a humble beer and tobacco shop tucked on a quiet street in Williamsburg near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Since partners Cory Bonfiglio and Joshua Meckes took over the space and turned it into a combined retail establishment and watering hole in 2014, it has become a beloved neighborhood bar and key craft beer destination, voted one of Draft Magazine’s “Top 100 Beer Bars” in 2014, 2015, and 2016. They opened a second location in Prospect Heights, just down the street from the Barclay’s Center, in 2020.
Bonfiglio and Meckes met in 2002 as bandmates. They both have deep roots in the New York City food and beverage community – Meckes was a managing partner at Over the Eight, while Bonfiglio was a managing partner at Proletariat and at the Cannibal before that. Bonfiglio’s craft beer obsession launched when he took a job at Whole Foods in the early 2000s upon returning from a band tour, where he began studying beer labels the same way he had studied the liner notes on his record collection, and formed strong industry relationships as a buyer for the store.
Though they still sell growlers, cans and bottles to go, their primary focuses are supporting local New York breweries, hospitality and service, and attention to detail. Bonfiglio’s handwriting is quite literally all over Beer Street, from the menu displaying their current draft selection to the Teku glasses – a type of stemware that keeps your beer at the proper carbonation level for maximum beverage integrity, popularized throughout the industry by both Proletariat and Beer Street – you’ll sip your brew from. They regularly collaborate with local breweries like Grimm, Other Half, Oxbow, Barrier and Greenpoint on exclusive brews for the bar, and have many more in the works. Also music lovers, they pay special attention to Beer Street’s soundtrack, playing a wide range of sounds like funk, dub, jazz, post-punk, R&B, soul & pop from all around the world. From the beer selection to the tunes, the emphasis is all the same: a warm and welcoming neighborhood bar, with something for everyone.
