damnlines.comdamnlines.comJulie Reiner's landmark Brooklyn cocktail bar; the bar and lounge stay walk-in only, so busy nights mean putting your name down and waiting.
Clover Club sits at 210 Smith Street, on the Cobble Hill / Carroll Gardens border. Its own reservations page says dinner reservations are accepted only for parties of 2 to 8, indoors. The bar and the lounge are walk-in; there is no online waitlist, so the bar's own page says walk-ins have to show up in person to add their name. That is the source of the venue's long-standing no-reservations reputation.
Reports on how bad the wait gets do not agree. The Infatuation calls entry 'never a hassle' compared with other upscale cocktail bars and says 'there always seems to be a table open, or a short wait for one at worst.' Aggregator listings and reviews push the other way, repeating that the no-reservations bar 'can be a long wait during peak hours' and that weekend seats are tough to get. No sourced wait-time number exists, and we do not measure one here.
The tactic reviewers describe is simple: drop your name at the bar, go eat dinner elsewhere on Smith Street, come back. Arriving early in the evening or on a weekday afternoon is the other commonly cited way to skip the crush. Time Out lists a Monday-Friday 4-6pm happy hour, which pulls its own after-work crowd.
No camera here yet — but these lines are on camera right now:
Golden Diner · 38 min walkclosedLucinda's · 59 min walkclosedBreakfast by Salt's Cure · 65 min walkclosedYes, but only for dinner, for parties of 2 to 8, indoors, per the bar's own reservations page. The bar and lounge stay walk-in, and there is no online waitlist.
Sources disagree. The Infatuation says there is usually a table or, at worst, a short wait. Aggregator listings warn the no-reservations bar can mean a long wait during peak weekend hours. No sourced number exists, and we do not have a camera here, so we cannot report a live wait.
Multiple listings point to off-peak arrival: early in the evening or a weekday afternoon. Friday and Saturday nights are the ones reviewers call hard to get a seat.
No. The bar's reservations page says there is no online waitlist and walk-ins must add their name in person. A common move in reviews is to drop your name, go to dinner nearby, then return.
210 Smith Street, on the Cobble Hill / Carroll Gardens border in Brooklyn. Time Out lists the F and G trains at Bergen Street as the nearest subway.