Soda Bar

SODA BAR 629 VANDERBILT AVE. (BETW. PROSPECT PL. & ST. MARKS AVE.) 718-230-8393 WITH A KERRY MALAISE making our blue city even bluer, subdued sorrow-drenching is in order. But where to turn in times of sadness? Comfort is elusive within the meatpacking hullabaloo. Rather, it's time to nestle in a neighborhood bar. For that, take a sip of Soda.

Soda Bar sits in Prospect Heights on Vanderbilt Ave., a long-desolate barber-shop-and-bodega stretch. Because of surrounding Fort Greene and Park Slope's skyrocketing rents, Vanderbilt has borne gentrification revitalization. In the last several years, Vanderbilt has boomed with a French café, Italian antipasto haven and even an upscale wine bar. But the precursor was down-home Soda Bar.

Its name is not an affectation. For decades, 629 Vanderbilt Ave. was home to Henry Boses' sundae shop and soda fountain. This would explain Soda's RC Cola calendars and wall mural of 50s sweet-tooth junkies sporting rolled-up t-shirts and cat's eye glasses. These touches, though, are merely nostalgic reference points for the 21st-century array: jukebox loaded with Mos Def and the Pixies; smoking patio; pool table; four-dollar drafts of Brooklyn Lager, Stella and Harpoon IPA; an operational kitchen.

Soda offers child's-head-sized burgers piled with crisp bacon and gooey cheese ($7), cheese pizzas ($5) and pierogies ($7), available stuffed with vegetables or pig products. While bar food is usually an afterthought, here it's a destination. Vanderbilt lacks a slice joint, and a bodega serving chips through bulletproof glass hardly counts as a source of sustenance.

This is why, on an average night, Soda packs locals tearing into fat onion rings ($3.50) and games of pool. And it ain't hipsters alone. Soda stitches itself into the local fabric, attracting a rainbow coalition of priced-out Park Slope lesbians, Caribbean locals and poorly paid professionals. They're quiet beer sippers searching for relief from big, bad New York City. Soda Bar is just the elixir for what ails them. So why muck up the program?

Last Thursday, Soda acknowledged Prospect Heights' increasing colonization by expanding. Walls separating next door's decrepit computer store were bashed in, creating an exposed-brick lounge complete with a projector for movies, cushy couches and fireplace. More than 20 martinis are on tap, as well as a vodka and Scotch bar.

Is this too soon for a 'hood with more gunshots than haute couture, owner Anatoly Dubinsky?

"Not at all," according to Dubinsky. With so many people moving into the area, he says, there's simply not enough space for Soda's drinkers to drink. "People have demands, and one of the demands was to sit down. It was great couple years, and I liked the low-key feeling, but it was limited. I was tired of watching people walk out the door."

Still, it's a minor miracle there was a door for customers to enter in the first place. Back in 2001, Dubinsky was sitting in a nearby coffee shop during the day, watching 20-somethings stream past. But at night, when he returned to the coffee shop, the streets were barren.

"I thought, 'Where do these people go at night? Underground? Back to their apartments? Manhattan?' There was no competition, nothing around," Dubinsky says. "I knew if I gave them somewhere to go, they would."

He searched Vanderbilt Ave. and found the Soda location. At the time, it was an abandoned speakeasy. The criminal joint was in dreadful condition, with the marble floor smashed to smithereens. So it was no surprise he received a cut-rate lease.

"My landlord said, 'You're not going to make it. I give you three years, then you're gone."

Three years later, Soda is still standing, and competition is finally arriving. In the next few months Vanderbilt will see several bars and lounges move onto its slender strip. Comprising just five commercial blocks (from Park Pl. to Pacific St.), Vanderbilt has little room for rampant growth. So Dubinsky doesn't see this as Park Slope's Fifth Ave., Part II. And he's fine with that.

"Do we need another Fifth Ave.? No. I want Vanderbilt to be a neighborhood block," Dubinsky says. "Most nights, no one's on the street, but people are in Soda. I don't know if people like me, or if there is nothing else around, but we'll soon find out."