The Rover is one of the best neighborhood dive bars I've ever seen. The Guiness is cold and scrumptious. The bartenders are friendly (and, yes, they give buy-backs like every good bar should). The decor is cozy---seemingly 200-year-old wooden walls and squeaky floors abound. It has a wonderfully subdued atmosphere, and a very cool selection of tunes in the juke. Gets pretty crowded on weekends (you should go there and get drunk on a Sunday afternoon).
I wouldn't say---as the preceeding reviewer did---that it's the greatest bar in NYC though. That title is reserved for the Rover's Astoria neighbor: The one, the only...Gibney's. Cheers everyone.
Pros: cozy atmosphere, great juke box, buy-backs
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