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For more than three decades, Jake’s Dilemma has supplied the Upper West Side with cold beer and crowded game days. Now, the neighborhood institution is calling last orders.
The bar will close on Sunday, October 18 after losing its lease, the team announced on Instagram. The sprawling watering hole has occupied 430 Amsterdam Avenue, between West 80th and 81st Streets, for 32 years.
“After 32 years on the Upper West Side, we’re heartbroken to share that we lost our lease and Jake’s Dilemma will close its doors on October 18,” the bar wrote. “Jake’s has been so much more than a bar. It’s been late nights, game days, first dates, bad decisions, lifelong friendships, incredible staff and more stories than we could ever fit into one post.”
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Jake’s paired an old-school pub feel with the energy of a downtown party bar. It poured 19 draft beers and stocked more than 35 bottled varieties, including microbrews, lagers, ales and seasonal selections. Multiple televisions made it a reliable headquarters for football fans, while beer pong tables, foosball, trivia nights and live music kept the place busy between games. On weekends, a DJ turned the bar into a dance floor.
Downstairs, the Oak Cellar offered a slightly more polished setting, with stone archways, mosaic tiles, brick walls, cobblestone floors and stained-glass accents. Still, Jake’s was never a place that took itself too seriously, an important quality in a bar with “Dilemma” in its name.
The Amsterdam Avenue space is already being marketed as a full-service restaurant opportunity. The listing includes 2,500 square feet on the ground floor and another 1,900 square feet downstairs, along with 12-foot ceilings and a full liquor license. Floor plans still show Jake’s beer pong tables and DJ booth, though the brokers suggest the address could suit “upscale sit-down dining or premium healthy concepts.”
Regulars will still have somewhere nearby to mourn: Jake’s shares ownership with The Gin Mill, located just up the block at 442 Amsterdam Avenue.
Before the doors close, Jake’s is asking former staff members, longtime patrons and anyone carrying memories of a particularly chaotic Saturday night to return for “One Last Round.” “We still have a little time left,” the bar wrote. Consider that both an invitation and fair warning.