Passing the Bar: Satellite Lounge

DO YOU REMEMBER the old Luna Lounge? It was on the LES, it booked good bands and every show there was free. Then the rapidly necrotizing neighborhood kicked it out for being too awesome and the club moved to a big, weird space on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg, where things didn’t quite work out. Following these indignities, it makes sense that its former owners would want their next project to have nothing to do with live music. Satellite Lounge, the latest project from former Luna honcho Rob Sacher, focuses its energies on the comparatively simple task of just being a bar.

Of course, for those who take their quest to find the perfect watering hole dead seriously, “just a bar” is an understatement tantamount with “just the Great American Novel,” “just the zombie apocalypse” or “just true, eternal, burning, passionate love.You know, a bit of that sort of thing.Whatevs.” Much like its neighbor Clem’s, Satellite has distilled the Platonic essence of bar-ness down to its most basic elements: booze, a place to sit and drink it and pleasant music to listen to, or maybe even discuss, as one sits and drinks said booze.The space is large, dark and minimalist, with cushion-less wooden booths to ensure nobody nods off into his or her whiskey.The only color comes from five globular lights above the bar and a row of three pinball machines, one of which proudly advertises itself as “tournament quality.” Given their incongruity with the rest of the room and the fact that over several visits, I’ve never seen anyone play with them, I feel they were included more as a winking signifier of the concept of bar games than an actual diversion for drunken people.

This suspicion intensifies when exam ining the meticulously selected playlist of crate-digging post-punk, new wave, Krautrock, electro, etc.This is no place for breathless ball flipping. Each new track that played lit up the eyes of the clientele with a sly “I know this song and agree that it is good” sentiment.When a song I didn’t know came on, it intrigued me enough that I felt compelled to ask (it was Nina Hagen).The patrons themselves mirrored the bar’s aesthetic: a bit sparse, but well curated by virtue of the slightly less welltrafficked location to be hip, local and inoffensive to the eye.

All this might sound intimidating, but it’s not.The bartender—who identified the Hagen track with nary a smirk—was nice enough to comp any non-alcoholic drinks we ordered, and $3 bottles of Miller and various $5 shot-and-beer combos matched similar deals in the neighborhood.There’s no tap and the beer selection is minimal, but if you want fancy beer, go to Spuyten Duyvvil. If you want salivating hordes, go to Union Pool. But if you want to sip a cheap drink and discuss postmodernism without getting your ass grabbed, we have a winner.

> Satellite Lounge

143 Havemeyer St. (betw. S. 1st & S. 2nd Sts.), Brooklyn, no phone