Carve your initials into New Haven's best bars

Of all the relationships you will cultivate at Yale, few will stand the test of time like your intimacy with drinking. This friendship will pass through many stages, even in the time you're here. In the first week, you will discover that your parents are never around. By October, you'll realize you can drink every night and still get good grades. And by year's end, it will hopefully be crushingly apparent how boring alcohol is in combination with wretched lighting, awful music, and deplorable people—in short, when you're squeezing it out of a keg in a residential college toilet.

ELISABETH MARSHALL/YH Kavanagh's on Chapel Street is a good place to go for a drink and a Danes-spotting.

Not that parties are bad—the best and worst ones will etch themselves in your memory—but often you're better off salvaging a slow night with a drink or five at a place designed for your drunken revelry rather than one converted for it. And so I offer you (that is, uh, if you're 21) my succinct Guide to New Haven's Finest Taverns, Watering Holes, and Sousing Nooks.

Naples (90 Wall St.); By day, this vaunted Wall Street pizzeria is a family restaurant for New Havenites and an intellectual shit-shootery for grad students and professors—Chinese historian Jonathan Spence even dedicated his Modern China book to Naples, where he confessed to having composed many of its notes. But Thursday night turns the place into a raucous freshman dance party to the tune of $8 pitchers of Bud, or $9 pitchers of the disproportionately atrocious Red Hook and Sam Adams for $9.75. They also sport a new jukebox, having traded in 45s of Otis Redding for CDs of Journey and Dave Matthews. Oh, and don't worry about carding after September: Naples would sooner sell you a fake ID than risk offending its core constituency.

Kavanagh's (1166 Chapel St.) used to offer a low-key atmosphere for an intimate drink. Then, last year, Claire Danes, CC '02, was spotted there on several occasions, and Thursday nights were never the same. Recently it's quieted down a bit, though it's often hard to squeeze yourself through the throngs of meaty, cashmere-sweatered bodies. But don't expect to get in—even for a burger—without a government-issue ID. At $4 or so a pint, Kav's is mid-range, if pretentious, drinking for the frat boy in disguise.

Anna Liffey's (17 Whitney Ave.); Actually, I don't expect anyone except thrill-starved residents of Timothy Dwight to discover this surprisingly authentic Irish pub until junior or senior year. I had the misfortune of eating there one Parents' Weekend, when I fought through the delicious-sounding, yet horrible-tasting Guinness stew. But if they'll serve you—those Irish waitresses don't give in easy—Anna Liffey's is a festive environment for a group sloshing. And if they won't...well, the appetizers are pretty good.

Rudy's (372 Elm St.); A New Haven institution, Rudy's is home to the best jukebox in the Elm City, and it's one of the few places where locals and Yalies coexist in peace, harmony, and inebriation. With live jazz every Tuesday, tables and walls carved with generations of Yalies' initials, and pints of Schaefer for a staggering $1.75 (!!), the bar simply feels like home, no matter where you're from. They even serve peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on select weekday afternoons.

Richter's (990 Chapel St.); You won't go here until the end of your Yale career, if at all. Seniors and grad students are frequent patrons of this establishment. Perhaps it's for the best, since the logistics of drinking one of the bar's famous half-yards would surely overwhelm any underclassman. The one time I went to Richter's, my friend Chris ordered one of Guinness, and his giddiness in the early going was shattered by his humiliation at spilling it all over himself—and in front of TAs, no less!

BAR (254 Crown St.); There will be those among you who long for the would-be SoHo stylings of this overrated Crown Street microbrew. Don't believe the hype: BAR may have good pizza, but when it turns down the lights and charges $6 at the door, you'll feel like you're in a club scene from a terrible early '90s movie—complete with blaring INXS b-sides, overpriced drinks, and white guys with dreadlocks. If that weren't bad enough, you might run into a philosophy TA there.

I hope these tips will be helpful in pursuit of the perfect Happy Hour. If not, just make sure you make it to the liquor store before 8 p.m.—this is Connecticut, after all.

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