North of Neil Patrick Harris’s new brownstone, Minton’s Playhouse, and the Red Rooster, Lorraine Drayton has served what one customer calls “the cheapest drinks in Harlem” for the past five years, with the help of her sisters Susie and Cheryl. “It’s pure family,” Charlie, a local with a red feather in his fedora, explained one night. Most evenings, a crowd of familiar faces congregates at the long bar, helping themselves to trays of collard greens, mac and cheese, and fried chicken from a counter in the back, and tapping their feet to “Take the A Train” (though the 2 and 3 are closer). Lorraine’s is usually crowded and boisterous when Knicks games are on, though everyone was a little muted in the face of this past season’s performance. The bar is often sprinkled with self-conscious new settlers, but the congregation of fortysomething regulars remains the soul of the place. The younger folks prefer Cîroc and Patrón. The older generation like their drinks strong and simple: a whiskey-and-soda means a double. The other night, four bottles of Moët were arrayed on the counter for a birthday, next to a pack of cinnamon-raisin bagels. Susie fondly recalled the day Lorraine’s got its liquor license, cementing it as a Harlem institution: “We had to wait six months because there was a church on the block. Now that church is gone.” ♦
