The Hog Pit is Closing! (Our pregnant sow is sure to be heartbroken)

Barfly is appalled, ladies and gentlemen. One of the last establishments that gives the meat packing district its trendified name is scheduled to shutter in the coming months due to a rent issue. The Hog Pit has been opening cans of PBR and pouring whiskey shots for over 15 years. There are going to be plenty of hungry piglets after they are forced to stop dispersing their delicious slop.

We’d like to be the first to nominate an official name change for the storied district. Meat is now a misnomer. How about the “New Jersey heifer stuffed into stilettos district”. This way, at least you keep the ‘flavor’ of beef.

Barfly is continually dismayed to see the shuttering of long time New York fun pits – especially when said closings so aptly provoke metaphors that involve the beloved characters of Charlotte’s Web getting ground into sausage. We recently lamented the unseemly demise of Fez. Carpeting on the renovated dance floor? How are we supposed to force ourselves out of bed in the morning (of course by “morning” we mean 5:30pm and by “bed” we mean our Ottoman-inspired pillow room)?

Apparently, these nefarious landlords were still hungry after they had their share of bacon. They offered the Hogs a renewed lease, at a whopping 3x increase to $40,000 a month. The management realized that they would have to do away with the cheap beer and sell specialty cocktails to wide eyed European Tourists ($14 for a vodka tonic, artfully renamed the USA-tini). Although they have to move to another farm, Barfly applauds them. We weren’t raised on organic pork, and we don’t plan on dealing with this overpriced “health” nonsense now.

The other white-meat that is taking the space over? Rumor has it that the landlords are going to lease out the space to Ralph Lauren. Though it certainly won’t replace the fried pickles, we suppose that the store will ad something to the neighborhood. At least you’ll have a place to get a new pair of $325 chinos when you walk out into the street and quickly get covered with filth. The Hog Pit may be leaving its post, but that doesn’t change the fact that this once provocative playground is transforming into a muck-filled sty.