Has anyone else not recovered from last week? No, just me? Okay, then.

Well, besides the boozing and carousing, it was a busy week nonetheless, and when I set out to find a bar to hang out in this week, my only requisite’s were a relaxing place downtown where I could grab a cheap beer, and not have to get all dressed up.

The problem is, many downtown bars are blah. The PATH and NJTransit crew (and I'm not talking about the conductors) all stumble up to Hoboken to go on a drinking safari, and unfortunately a lot of the bars in the area cater to that. Annoying DJ’s? Check. Ridiculous cover charge? Check. Markup on watered down drinks? Check check check. Like, I have never been to Teak (so this is an assumption), but that seems like a place where everyone wears leather pants. 

So I made my way past the creepy Hotel Edward (a haunted mansion, for sure), to Green Rock Bar and Grill, where I plopped onto a barstool and met bartender Matt Tower.

Now, the last time I was at Green Rock, it was for the Santa Fest Bar Crawl, and the place was packed with Santa’s. It was a fun event, but it also made me wary – was this place going to get so crowded that I couldn’t move? Was every guy going to have a white beard?

No worries, I soon learned. The other bar patrons were all in their mid-twenties to thirties, working professional types grabbing a few pints after work. Even with Green Rock’s happy hour deal, $1 mugs of Budweiser, Coors or Yuengling, there wasn’t a stampede of bros with backwards baseball caps sloshing their drinks all over me. Dare I say that with a deal like that the evening was still… low-key?

Tower, who has been slinging drinks since 2004, explained that Green Rock was opened nine years ago by local guys (“Not a bunch of businessmen,” he said) who had worked as bartenders in New York. 

He said it’s that unpretentious attitude that has kept Green Rock in business for almost a decade. Okay, and it might be those dollar mugs.

So here’s the deal: happy hour is from 5 to 8 p.m. during the week, while the weekends boast $0.35 wings. Almost every night there’s a food special, like two-for-one burgers or pizzas. The beer selection is standard, with nothing very fancy. They do have a rotating monthly special draft, at least (March is Harpoon IPA). They’ll make you cocktails, but are mostly known as a beer bar, with the occasional shots at night. Sometimes they’ll host a “Kick the Keg” event, where for two bucks a glass you drink until the keg runs out – fun times! Otherwise, beers are about $4 for domestic brews and $5 for imports.

Tower does mention that on Tuesday nights, the bar will get packed for those aforementioned dollar mugs, so if that’s not your scene, any other weeknight is more subdued. The weekends get busy, but then again all of Hoboken gets busy on the weekend. Again, the proximity to the PATH does encourage the Murray Hill tourists looking to study the species known as “the New Jerseyan,” but hey, what can you do? 

If you’re downtown and face the lack of options in nightlife (will Lana Lounge ever re-open? Does anyone actually care? Can you drink in the American Apparel?), Green Rock is one of your better bets for an easygoing night on the town.

“During the week, it’s just friendly conversation and laughs,” Tower said. And dollar beers. Definitely dollar beers.

So, if I had to give a rating (which I do), I would award Green Rock with seven frosty mugs. Points are deducted for the fairly standard beer menu, and the nights that can get a little too crowded. Points are awarded for the friendly service, the unpretentious atmosphere and the ability to get drunk (and eat!) on the cheap.