HELL’S KITCHEN — Craft beer spot The Pony Bar on 10th Avenue will close this week and reopen with a new name and menu inspired by one of the owners' mothers, they said.
The bar, located at 637 10th Ave. at the corner of West 45th Street, will transform into Hellcat Annie’s Tap Room after undergoing “much-needed repairs,” co-owner Pat Hughes said.
The Pony Bar will serve its last suds on Super Bowl Sunday.
The change is part of Hughes' and co-owner Dan McLaughlin’s decision to “amicably end [their] business partnership,” Hughes explained.
“It is named after my mother, who ran a bar in Hell’s Kitchen when things weren’t quite as gentrified as they are today (understatement)!” he wrote in an email.
“We will be changing the food menu a bit, adding a cocktail menu, [and] expanding happy hour to include liquor, wine and of course CRAFT BEER!” he said.
Hughes and McLaughlin also currently own the nearby Lansdowne Road Sports Bar, a second Pony Bar on the Upper East Side and Kiabacca, located next door to the 10th Avenue Pony Bar.
McLaughlin will retain ownership of the Upper East Side outpost — as well as the Pony Bar brand — and the three other ventures will go to Hughes, McLaughlin said.
“Basically, we really couldn’t have two Pony Bars under different ownership,” he explained.
When Pony Bar opened on 10th Avenue in 2009, “there was really nothing like it of its kind in the neighborhood,” McLaughlin said.
“Now, there are a lot of — I wouldn’t say copycats — but people who have come along after us,” he said.
“People stopped opening Irish pubs, stopped opening sports bars and started opening craft beer bars.”
