Elsie’s Oke Doke Bar
April 30th, 2012 Posted in UncategorizedWhen I was in my twenties I used to go to a bar on 84th Street called the Oke Doke. The name was technically the Oke Doke Restaurant, but it wasn’t a restaurant, it was a tiny bar with no tables, (that I remember) a jukebox and a shuffle bowl game. Elsie, the owner, wouldn’t open the door for everyone. You’d knock, she looked you over, and maybe she’d let you in.
Sometime after I turned forty, I went back to the Oke Doke with my friend Chris. Elsie was like the Miss Havisham of bar owners, it turned out. I wrote about the visit in my book, Waiting For My Cats to Die. An abridged version:
“The place was practically unchanged. The same singers were on the jukebox: Frank Sinatra, who is the most represented, Al Jolson, Patsy Cline, Bobby Darin, Marion Lanza, The Ink Spots, and Peggy Lee. I recognized the few knick-knacks behind the bar, like a cheap brandy snifter filled with 20 year old, now smell-less pot-pourri, as well as the shuffle bowl game on the way to the bathroom. Nothing has moved in eighteen years, nothing has been spruced up, nothing has been renovated. It was dingier and less cheerful …
“Elsie was smaller than I remembered, and grayer. “I’ve been running this place since 1950,” she tells me. The guys I used to come in here with—who weren’t exactly the nicest guys in the world—still come around, she told me. She clearly adored them. She called them “my boys” and told me what they are all up to.
“The three of us talked about men and children until she buzzed in a group of six young Eastern European men who, recognizing the honor they had been given, thanked her very politely, and took the stools to our right. A little while later she buzzed in a handsome man roughly my age who walked in with a very lovely young woman in her twenties. They sat to my left. “This is my third time in here this week,” he announced to the room. I liked him at once. Elsie pulled out a guestbook. “Someone gave this to me in 1986,” she said. It listed the dates, names, addresses and, best part, it had a space for comments.
“I scanned for familiar names. I found one of Elsie’s boys, someone I used to come here with. “I will always love you … Your Tallboy.” (He was gigantic, I remember.) I found his brother’s name. He’d written, “When will I be known only for my own good deeds?” A touching question …”
I would do anything to read that guestbook now, slowly and carefully. I couldn’t at the time. It’s just the kind of thing I live for whenever I research and write. The comments created such a perfect picture of the place and the people who used to drink there. The Tallboy was a guy named Ray who I’d dated a few times. Ray had, like, a billion brothers, and I don’t remember which one wrote “When will I be known only for my own good deeds?” but I still think it’s a touching question. I wonder if he ever went on to perform any good deeds.
Sometime after, I went back to the Oke Doke, and there was a sign on the door saying that it was closed and Elsie was in a nursing home. I went to visit her. The place wasn’t bad at all, but it was a terrible visit. Elsie was miserable and angry to be there, and she just fumed the whole time, it was awful. She told me her boys visited her and I believed her. Like I said, they weren’t the nicest people I’ve ever known, but as far as I could tell they had genuine affection for Elsie, so I could see them visiting her.
The site of the former Elsie’s Oke Doke, from Google maps. The orange awning is where Elsie’s used to be. I wished I’d taken a picture at the time. I couldn’t find a picture of it online. She ran it for roughly forty years, there must be a picture somewhere.
19 Responses to “Elsie’s Oke Doke Bar”
By Dan on Apr 30, 2012
Did you ever go to the All State Cafe, on W 72nd St? Similar. Two steps down to enter. Supposedly the bar that Cheers was based on. Kevin Bacon tended bar there in the early 70′s.
Likewise, Fedora’s, in the Village, was there from about 1951 till year before last. She sold out, they remodeled it into another soulless fancy schmancy New York eatery. She (Fedora) still hangs around there, but it ain’t the kind of wonderful crummy old place it used to be.
I assume you know that the new WTC becomes the tallest building in New York today?
By Stacy Horn on Apr 30, 2012
I do know. I want to take a walk downtown and take pictures. Maybe I will do that now …
I don’t know All State Cafe, but I’m sorry I didn’t. I’m VERY sorry I missed the opportunity of being served a drink by Kevin Bacon (who I adore). Ellen Barkin used to waitress at the Bagel on West 4th Street!
By Karen on May 1, 2012
Stacy, I’m so grateful at your continued efforts to notice people and things and acknowledge their importance. It really gets me to see a place like this where lives unfolded and now the whole thing has been replaced as if it were never there.
By Karen on May 1, 2012
*grateful for
By Christine on May 1, 2012
What a trip down memory lane!
The line you refer to comes from a poem by Allen Ginsberg, “America.”
Another: (America), “why are your libraries full of tears?”
Another (paraphrase)”When will you learn to be angelic?”
It’s online if you want to read the whole poem.
I remember writing in that book–but I have no recollection what. Were we really forty something?
(sorry I posted this above-wrong place.)
By Gregory Moore on May 1, 2012
What a coincidence! Only yesterday, as I was biking through Yorkville, I had a sudden flashback to the many nights spent in the company of the charming Elsie at her Oke Doke in the late 80′s. It was, without a doubt, my all-time favorite Manhattan joint. Thus, today I did a Google search to find out where it was and found your posting from just yesterday. I remember as clearly as if it were last week, meekly rapping on the locked front door and peering through the haze of caked nicotine on the glass as Elsie studied me through the window to see whether or not she approved. I was lucky enough to have passed her muster, somehow. I have a rather vivid anecdote that took place there that I hope doesn’t strike you as vulgar, but come on…we’ve all been there! I was in the neighborhood when I had a sudden, urgent need for a men’s room. I darted into Elsie’s, which was curiously opened earlier than usual (as I recall, her hours were VERY unpredictable). In any case, I anxiously darted into her tiny, gruesome men’s room, only to discover that the stall was “CLOSED FOR REPAIR”. So I went over to Elsie and said I had an emergency and could I use the ladies’ room. She said, “What? The urinal’s working!” I said, “Umm, no…I need the other one!” She said, “Oh, okay, go on in!”. If you recall the place was microscopically tiny and the restrooms were basically right next to the bar. As I ran into the ladies’ room and took a seat, through the wood-slatted door I heard one of the grizzled, female denizens of the bar: “Hey Elsie…I just saw a guy go in the ladies’ room!” Elsie cheerfully announced at full-volume, to everyone in the room, “OH, IT’S OKAY…HE’S IN THERE DOING A NUMBER TWO!” I’ll never forget the looks of everyone at the bar as I tried to quietly creep out of there, staring at me as if I’d just committed some crime against the nation….what a joint that was! Thanks for the memories…
Incidentally, wasn’t the All-State on 72nd the bar where the woman whose life was chronicled in “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” took place? She met a guy there and went home with him…and he turned out to be her psycho-killer? Pretty sure that was the place. I used to hang there, too!
By Dan on May 1, 2012
Yes it was. Great burgers.
By Stacy Horn on May 2, 2012
Very embarrassing story, Gregory!
Chris, I just deleted the other post. And yes, we were forty-something, alas.
By David on May 8, 2012
My family and I lived at 307 east 84th from 1966 until 1975 (I was born in 71). We lived on the 3rd floor.
My parents were friends with Elsie. As kids -
we’d drop in for a coke or pepsi (didn’t know the difference). I think she had a cat if I remember correctly.
By Stacy Horn on May 10, 2012
That’s amazing that you remember something from when you were only three years old!! Did you go back from time to time?
By David on May 10, 2012
Yes – I have a lot of great memories from back then. We stayed in Yorkville even
after moving from 84th street. We lived on 83rd and then 92nd st.
By David on May 10, 2012
86th street was a big deal to us as kids. We had movie theaters, lots of places to eat, places to shop (gimbels). We spent a lot of
time at Carl Shurz park as well.
By Stacy Horn on May 16, 2012
I grew up on Long Island and I always envied the kids who got to grow up in the city.
By David on May 25, 2012
I have cousins that grew up on Long Island and they felt the same way. I actually looked
forward to visiting them during the summer. It was a whole different experience.
By Stacy Horn on May 28, 2012
When world’s collide! Well, now I’ve been in the city for many years, so I made that dream come true!
By Doug M on Sep 29, 2012
Did you ever hear the story about Jack Nicholson being refused entry by Elsie. I could imagine hearing him ranting outside.
By Stacy Horn on Sep 29, 2012
Ha! I’ve never heard that one.
By Steve O'Brien on Nov 6, 2012
Stacy, I’m a little late to the party–somehow my friend and fellow Elise patron just came across this. My friends & I were regulars (probably too regular) for about 4 years from about ’88-’92. Elsie knew us well and was a real character. As to the jukebox, our favorites were Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” & The Foundations’ “Buttercup.” Not mentioned was that she hated swearing and would threaten to throw you out if you did (and that was if she liked you). She also threatened to throw me & a friend out one night for “cutting up”–namely we were kidding around and laughing too much for her taste–really funny since we were the only ones there. Also, behind the bar she had a picture of early 50′s Yankee outfielder Hank Bauer, who she had proudly dated at the time. What great memories!
By Stacy Horn on Nov 9, 2012
I forgot about the swearing, but now that you mention it, I remember! But I don’t remember the Hank Bauer picture. Thank you so much for posting your memories. I so wish it was still there. I know Elsie is gone, but it would have been great if someone else could have taken it over. There’s no place like that now.