The Other Long Island Bar
Newsletter #5: Rockwell Place, owned by the same people behind LIB, deserves more attention.
Recently, my wife Mary Kate and I became season ticket holders at Theatre for a New Audience, the Brooklyn nonprofit theater. This was a great development for us for the usual reasons—more live theater, supporting a local cultural institution, etc.—but also dealt us the side benefit of more frequent visits to Rockwell Place.
Rockwell Place is a cocktail bar named after a gritty, two-block-long street that has nothing of note on it but Rockwell Place. But it is very close to Brooklyn’s theater district, which includes TFANA, BAM, the Harvey Theatre and Mark Morris Dance Group. This means Rockwell Place is a perfect stop for drinks before and/or after a show. Which is what we have made it.
I don’t think I’m alone among cocktail enthusiasts in treating Rockwell Place as an afterthought. You see, Rockwell Place, which opened in 2018, is run by the same people who founded Long Island Bar, the beloved bar in painfully picturesque Cobble Hill. It’s become a cliché in cocktail circles that if you ask a cocktail writer or bartender what their favorite bar is, they’ll likely say Long Island Bar. Hey, I’m part of that cliché; it is my favorite bar. This opinion may have something to do with the fact that many journalists and bartenders live in brownstone Brooklyn. But mainly you can chalk it up to LIB’s general excellence—in drinks, food, service, bartending, atmosphere, attitude, everything.
This adulation, however, has cast Rockwell Place in shadow. In truth, probably any bar that partners Toby Cecchini and Joel Tompkins would have opened after LIB was going to pale in comparison. But—as I’ve learned the more I frequent Rockwell Place—that’s not really fair to the bar. If you can acclimate yourself to the general décor—which, with its sleek lines and anonymous eclectic modernity, is about as different from the cozy retro cocoon of LIB as possible—there’s a lot to like here.
