The Dead Poet Bar at 450 Amsterdam Avenue near 82nd Street likes to celebrate birthdays, and will happily celebrate yours by pouring you some free booze. It’s one of the rare remaining local spots that gives freebies to people celebrating their special day, the Wall Street Journal recently found.
But there’s a catch. To receive free drinks — excluding shots, premium beers and liquors and some cocktails — you have to share a birthday with a famous writer. There’s a list of birth dates at the bar. If you don’t have the rare luck of sharing a date with someone like Edgar Allan Poe (January 19) or Virginia Woolf (January 25), you’ll have to find another literary great who shares your birthday and then convince the bartender that the person is worthy of the liquor (no your Uncle Barney who sends around emails with dirty limericks doesn’t count).
So enjoy your birthday, and dedicate your next cold one to a great dead poet.
Dead poet is a terrific bar. So is their sibling bar George Keeleys (if you order food at Poet it comes from Keeleys). Two of the best bars on the uws!
November 13/I share mine with Robert Louis Stevenson. Must remember to go there in November. no u
Why no January 18? A.A. Milne, the man who gave us Pooh Bear, isn’t worthy of a shot? BAH HUMBUG!
As Soup Nazi might say: “No honey for you.”
@Bill I think you mean “Oh, Bother.”
“If you don’t have the rare luck of sharing a date with someone like Edgar Allan Poe (January 19) or Virginia Woolf (January 25), you’ll have to find another literary great who shares your birthday and then convince the bartender that the person is worthy of the liquor”
I share mine with LeVar Burton. C’mon, “Reading Rainbow”?! Man’s a legend.
I have Abraham Lincoln. The Gettysburg Address was some great writing
I like the plant store next door.
Guinness Club!!
I share a birthday with Ernest Hemingway and have enjoyed plenty of free birthday drinks at the Dead Poet. It is a great deal!
Me too! I have to go there in July.
Anton Chekhov. Ice cold vodka. Thanks!
My birthday’s the same as Ernest Hemingway’s. No kidding.
8/24 Dave Chappelle Is my famous bday
I share mine with Joseph Heller of Catch-22 fame, and he was a native New Yorker to boot. I sure hope they have him in their book.
I’m in! I share with D.H. Lawrence! See you in September!
Big fan of Dead Poet. Super good guys that work and own it.
I’m in! I share a birthday with D.H. Lawrence! See you in September!
Does Oprah Winfrey (Jan. 29) count?
Hmm, I share a birthday with two famous writers. However, they are song writers. Paul McCartney and Sammy Cahn.
Would that count?
Can I retroactively come get a pint for sharing my birthday with Edgar Allan Poe? It’s also Dolly Parton’s, Phil Everly’s, Janis Joplin’s and Robert Palmer’s birthday, amongst others. They can all be considered poets in a way. One free drink for each?
Oooh, now I need to do some research!
TIL I share the same birthday as E. E. Cummings.
For those of us born on May 4, let’s try to convince the bartender that David Guterson (b. 1956) is a worthy author.
Guterson wrote the 1994 bestseller ‘Snow Falling On Cedars’ as well as ‘East of the Mountains’ (1999), ‘Our Lady of the Forest’ (2003), ‘The Other’ (2008),and ‘Ed King’ (2011).
I’ve got Hunter S. Thompson on my birthday…free drinks would be a fitting way to honor him…and me!
Do you think Albert Einstein counts? I think physicists would say he wrote poetry…. ?
Yikes- just missed this. Would also like to point out that Robert Burns was born on January 25th, as was I. And he was a poet to boot, so enough with the Virginia Woolf references!!!
Yippee!! Look for me on February 8th with John Grisham. Thanks