Ancient wooden stocking-stretchers in the vague shapes of legs. Old oil portraits. A fruit-picking ladder. “I don’t know what all this stuff is,” said the bartender one night recently about the anachronistic décor at Park Slope’s new bar Flatbush Farm. 

It’s a hilarious name if you've ever seen Flatbush Avenue's four lanes of day-and-night traffic; nowhere around would the word "farm" come to mind. Yet the bar’s owners selected it to reflect the farms that once existed in the area. It’s also a reference to the in-season produce the place will serve when its restaurant half opens in the fall. 

This newcomer is surprising because, in a neighborhood with a constant turnover of bistros and boutiques, there's rarely a new bar in the Brooklyn borderland between Prospect Heights and Park Slope. And suddenly, not one but two new spaces have opened, both with backyards, which, as any swelter-stupefied New Yorker knows, is a major plus.

And here is the boutique equivalent of a bar. Flatbush Farm doesn’t go for mainstream appeal, as evinced by its aforementioned décor; the unusual beer selection on tap (Victory Prima Pils, Doc’s Draft Hard Pear Cider, Lagunitas Censored Ale and more) and pricey bar menu (hot artichoke dip, cheese and cured meats plate, “assortment of cookies”) don’t really cater to the man-off-the-street crowd. This is a plus for craft-beer lovers who prefer to savor their vice instead of rushing to get drunk on the same old trash. 

Many of the beers (such as Six Point) have a local focus, like the bar’s name implies. Could this be a bar gone macrobiotic? And homemade cocktails include names such as “Mo’ Stomy,” “Drunk Watermelon” and “Grandpa Frank’s Slammer.”

All alcohol is $2 off from 5-8 p.m., a good idea if, like me, you don’t stop at just one, and you want to avoid paying $6 for a better brew. Step into the quiet, intimate backyard at dusk and feel the gravel crunch beneath your feet as you steer toward a table with the kind of drink you can’t get anywhere else in the neighborhood.

“WARNING: Fish Pox” reads a sign on the wall of the Cherry Tree, another new backyard-endowed bar just a couple blocks away on the border of Park Slope and Boerum Hill. Here, the focus is less on the bar and more on the multilevel backyard, charmingly illuminated by candles and tiki torches and furnished with picnic tables and little wooden stools under tall trees.

While connoisseurs may prefer Flatbush Farm, the Cherry Tree is where to go if you want the familiar. Time-honored beers—Stella, Guinness and Budweiser—and time-honored prices are a selling point. Most pints are $4, and pitchers range from $14-$18. There’s a backyard BBQ on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as brunch on Sundays.

Upon seeing the sign outside informing it was “Ladies’ Night,” I almost expected to see something as outdated as Kool and the Gang themselves when we walked in the door. Friendly customers and one of the bar’s owners hailed us as we entered and enticed us with $4 cocktails, thanks to our gender status. 

Nightly themes such as this are the bar’s gimmick—in addition to karaoke, quiz nights, ’80s DJ night and others. 

If only the bar had a jukebox we might have been more inclined to sit inside. But the only option is to listen to whatever the bartender is playing on an iPod. They said we could request a song, but what the hell does that even mean when you’re talking about somebody else’s iPod?

With a cozy backyard and a happy hour from noon to 8 p.m., though, it’s a spot that won’t bite the dust anytime soon. If you want to start drinking at 1:30 p.m., go for it—you might even earn a spot on the bar’s “Drunk of the Week” wall. What must you do to win the honor? “Drink a lot.”

Flatbush Farm

76-78 St. Mark’s Ave. (at Flatbush Ave.), B’klyn

718-622-3276

The Cherry Tree

65 4th Ave. (betw. Bergen St. & St. Mark’s Ave.), B’klyn

718-399-1353