Bar Review: The Four Faced Liar, West Village, Manhattan

Neighborhood: Manhattan/West Village
165 West 4th Street (between Cornelia St & Jones St)
New York, NY 10014
(212) 366-0608


Offering respite from nearby MacDougal Street’s sports bars full of beer-pong playing NYU frat boys, The Four-Faced Liar is a cozy Irish-owned pub full of neighborhood regulars. The Liar is home to an extremely friendly and sociable staff as well as my favorite bartender, Shafer. It’s easy to become a regular here since the bartenders learn your name and have your drinks ready before you take your seat at the bar.

There’s one small tv, usually tuned to a sports game, from which I watched the Democrats take the House and (eventually) Senate in the recent election. The juke box, sadly, is one of those new state-of-the-art-choose-almost-any-song-ever-released things. The music varies based on the crowd, but mostly falls somewhere in the vein of rock and country. The crowd varies from young to old, blue collar to white collar, and does have some overflow from the nearby universities. The Liar offers occasional live music and is home to the Frequency Reading Series. Happy hour runs until 8pm and offers buy one-get one deals on certain drafts.

The Liar is situated among West 4th Street’s many sex shops. Warm weather offers sidewalk seats, where you sit out front under umbrellas and watch the interesting West 4th crowd pass by. From the patio I once saw a bicycle messenger crash into a Buddhist monk. They both got up, dusted themselves off, and continued on their separate paths.

Reviewed by Gina Myers


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