You know that part in Breakfast at Tiffany’s where Holly Golightly’s telling super-boring Paul Varjak about the mean reds, and she says, “When I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's”?

Well, for intern Anastasia, Mars Bar is just as good as Tiffany*. Nay, better!

She explains it all, after the jump…

[*Don't you hate it when people call it Tiffany's, like in the movie?]

I’ve never gotten anything as poetic as the mean reds, and I’d guess you haven’t either, which is probably a good thing. But you need not be gruesomely depressed to enjoy Mars Bar. It's basically good for all sorts of dreary occasions: break-ups, fights with friends, or after finding out that your weed man just got arrested.

Mars Bar is great in these situations chiefly because it’s everything Tiffany is not. Tiffany is too respectable. Like church, it’s bound to make you feel bad about your indiscretions. But Mars Bar is a filthy, badly-lit shithole, where you can revel in your nascent alcoholism. All the beer is in bottles—no taps—and they don’t have a phone. The jukebox is full of Danzig and the Cro-Mags and Bowie, and the walls are covered with art and graffiti—it’s what I wanted my room to look like when I was 15. The only real downside is the bathrooms, which are far worse than CBGB’s ever were—frequently, people relieve themselves everywhere but the toilet, and there are no locks on the doors, leaving you to stare at them very hard and hope your untapped powers of telekinesis kick in.

And, of course, there are the regulars—East Village relics you’ve never seen outside the bar. They’re older and uglier than you, and their livers are more bloated. They’re also mostly harmless, and full of awesome stories.

I knew I liked this bar the first time I walked in—partially because I didn’t have an I.D. then, and they also didn’t card (they’re pretty strict, now), but also because the guy next to me just turned and asked, “Do you believe in God?” Awesome!

Since then, I’ve met plenty of other charmingly eccentric conversationalists, like the ex-Marine who “voted for Caligula in every election since 1980,” or the crusty punk girl with “permadirt” who ran into traffic waving her arms, and the older Spanish woman who joined her, because “that was the only real punk rock thing I’ve seen in New York,” or someone named Neon Music who used to work with André J at Patricia Field.

If you’ve hung out with me at all, I’ve probably tried to drag you to Mars Bar. In fact, people often ask me if I’m a regular there, and the answer is no. I do go about once a month, however, and there was one month when I went regularly enough for the bartenders to recognize me. Thiat was also the only month I went home with someone from Mars Bar. He was a 25-year-old NYU dropout who’d been trading Adderall for drinks all night. Classy! Of course, he texted me the next day saying he had a girlfriend, and he was sorry, and “this is like a lost scene from Ghost World.”

When I went back the next week, I asked one of the bartenders if he really had a girlfriend. She said yes, and also the girlfriend was ugly, and they’d just broken up. And then I got a free drink. I think this is pretty much exactly what you want out of a bartender.

As you can tell by my earnest approach, I genuinely like Mars Bar and the people in it. There’s nothing ironic about it. I’ve always wanted to be one of those crusty, storytelling East Villagers when I get older. I’m not sure how the bar stays open, surrounded by condos and that fucking John Varvatos store—maybe there’s some completely mundane explanation, like the building being rent-controlled—but I’d like to believe it's magic.