Review

This large and welcoming bar on West Village's Sheridan Square serves as both a bistro and a bar, and seems perpetually busy. Open until 4am, the clientele are generally young, trendy and good-looking, although there is a smattering of passers-by and tourists. Boxer's appears to have a strange magnetic charm, as spending an hour sitting at one of the high-tables that face the street, you will be amazed at the amount of people walking past who notice this bar on the corner of West 4th and Barrow Street, stop, look through the windows, chat briefly amongst themselves, and then come marching in, straight to the bar.

Under the watchful gaze of such literary luminaries as Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway, whose portraits and quotations are painted high on the walls, you can enjoy one of the predictable beers and admire the bare-bricked wall and ceiling décor, which gives the impression of being in a very high-ceilinged cellar. There are two rooms with a large, open-plan bar straddling both, although the design and feel gives the appearance of one large room. There is a TV in one of the rooms showing the ever-present American sport, and the average drinker glued to the Superbowl play-offs appears to be a hybrid of a high-school sports jock and an archetypal New York yuppie.

The staff in Boxer’s Bar seem to wear a uniform, which is a tight, black top with a picture of a Boxer on the back (a ‘Boxer’ dog, not a cauliflower eared oaf); for the female bar staff, there is the additional benefit of skin-tight, black trousers, which show every lump, bump and mound. I am reliably informed by my boozing, reviewing cohort that one of the barmaids is ‘the best in New York City’, although I choose to withhold judgement until I’ve tried every bar in NYC, observed the quality of the barmaids, and then made a decision. She was pretty good though, as were most of the females in attendence – bar staff, table staff and patrons.

The bar, however, seems understaffed for such a busy establishment, and we waited 15 minutes to be served.

The amount of customers attempting to get seated for food is testimony to the quality of the cuisine, and if you're the type of person who doubts the cleanliness and hygiene levels of bar and restaurant kitchens, then perhaps Boxer's is the place for you, as a trip to the toilet takes you past the kitchen where you can peer in and see what's going on. It seems clean and fairly innocuous, although the Chinese chefs were seen leaving the kitchen with a very heavy plastic bin, which they manhandled down the stairs towards the toilets and then away into the ether beyond. Was this just kitchen waste? Was this something more sinister? Or perhaps it was the remains of the last person who gave Boxer's Bar a naff pub review!

The toilets are clean, tiled and fairly large by New York standards. There is a generous sized cubicle with a door that fits most of the frame and not a cut-down saloon version, as seen in other hostelries. And being downstairs, this is the ideal place to meet one of the many beautiful women who adorn Boxer’s bar: just wait to let them past as they descend the stairs, convey your perfect, English charm, and you’re home and dry – never fails, except during our visit.

Review by mr_psm