It’s hard to imagine how people will describe mid-century chic post-“Mad Men,” or to guess whether New York’s virulent case of retro fever will clear up now that the final final credits have rolled. But at the Happiest Hour, amid palm-tree wallpaper and a flamboyance of flamingo tchotchkes, you can still guzzle mai tais and hear jokes about Don Draper on vacation. The bar is a sort of baby Bungalow 8, or, as one patron described it, a place for “young people skewing old and old people skewing young.” When someone requested a What the Doctor Ordered (sarsaparilla, vanilla, wintergreen, soda, booze) a bartender with a moony surfer vibe explained that it could be made with rye, rum, or Scotch. (There are seven pick-your-liquor cocktails; you can put vodka in anything.) The rye would make it “pretty Old Westy,” he said; the Scotch, “pretty cool.” The rum made it taste like a mind-bending root beer. A waitress in a mint-green mini-uniform deemed the slushy du jour, which contained cognac, gin, rum, and orange juice, “kinda citrusy, definitely alcoholic.” As “Let’s Get It On” played, gorgeous cheeseburgers were ferried to a group of lady friends. One said, “I think I R.S.V.P.’d when I got the save-the-date, but who knows?” Another added, wistfully, “I thought you were talking about bread,” and somewhere in syndication Betty Draper rolled her eyes. ♦
