Beer Hall Near Me by Penn Station: Clinton Hall on 36th Street

Clinton Hall 36th Street opens at noon Tuesday through Sunday and at 3pm on Monday, and its Double Smashed burger, the one that won the Food Network Burger Bash title for best burger in New York, costs $19 with fries. The hall sits at 16 West 36th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, a ten-minute walk from Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. If you searched beer hall near me before a Knicks game, a concert at the Garden or a train out of Moynihan, this is the big room with the giant Jenga.

Clinton Hall takes its name from Castle Clinton, the round stone fort in Battery Park that later became Castle Garden, which the group describes as the site of America's original beer garden in 1824. The 36th Street hall opened in 2017 as the group's Midtown outpost near the Garden. Today the group runs four New York locations: FiDi, 36th Street, 51st Street and the Bronx, all built around the same mix of beer, burgers and free games.

The 36th Street room works on two levels. The ground floor holds the bar and long high-tops, while a mezzanine looks down over the floor and, from its far end, gives a slice of the Empire State Building through the front windows. Oversized Jenga, Connect Four and chess sets sit around the floor for anyone to use, and shelves of table games such as Uno and Cards Against Humanity are free to borrow. The noise level rises fast once office groups arrive after 5pm.

Clinton Hall calls its beer program Supercraft, and a Chief Beer Officer on staff rotates the taps across the four halls, so the list here rarely matches what you drank last month. Expect a spread of hazy IPAs, German lagers and a few sour or barrel-aged rarities rather than a fixed house lineup. The sensible move is to ask the bartender which keg went on most recently, because the rare kegs go first on game nights.

German styles get a bigger push in the fall, when the group runs Oktoberfest events across its locations. On weekend bottomless brunch, Bitburger and Erdinger are on the $29.99 package alongside mimosas, Bloody Marys and cider, with 90 minutes of unlimited drinks when you order an entrée; the mimosas-and-bellinis-only version is $19.99. Cocktails run $15, including a Hall Pass Spritz made with Aperol, Hall Pass IPA and lime juice.

The Double Smashed at $19 is the order: two beef patties, American cheese, CH sauce, crispy shallots and bread-and-butter pickles on a sesame bun with fries. The Fondue Burger at $18 is the photo dish, a pretzel bun filled with a pool of molten fondue cheese and fries, and it is messier than it looks. The German Burger, $18, adds IPA caramelized onions and garlic aioli on a pretzel roll, which matches a lager better than either of the others.

For the table, the Jenga mozzarella sticks at $16 come as eight sticks stacked like the game, and the jumbo soft pretzel with fondue cheese and mustard marmalade is $14. Skip the Birthday Cake WTF Waffle at $30 unless it is somebody's birthday; it is a three-layer tower built for a photo, not dessert after two burgers. The CH Challenge is a $50 burger tower that is free if one person finishes it in 25 minutes, served with a 16oz Gigawatt beer.

Hours run Monday 3pm to midnight, Tuesday to Thursday noon to midnight, Friday and Saturday noon to 2am, and Sunday noon to midnight. On a Madison Square Garden night the pre-game crowd is heaviest in the two hours before the event and thins out once people head west to the arena, so the easiest table comes right after doors close at the Garden. A post-game drink works best if you linger a little after the final buzzer rather than walking in with the whole crowd.

Weekend brunch runs from 11:30am to 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays, with dishes such as breakfast nachos for $14 and a smoked salmon benedict on mini bagels for $18. Office groups dominate weekday evenings from 5 to 8pm, so a Tuesday lunch is the quiet way to try the burger. If the room is packed and the wait is longer than 20 minutes, walk up to Clinton Hall 51st Street at 230 East 51st Street, which runs the same menu.

Reservations go through SevenRooms from the Clinton Hall website, and the team takes large-group, birthday, after-work and private event bookings directly. Groups of ten or more should book; the high-top sections near the games are the first to be reserved for office parties in December and during playoff runs. Walk-ins are fine for two to four people outside peak hours, and the giant games are first come, first served, so claim one before ordering.

The crowd is mostly Midtown office workers, commuters killing time before a New Jersey Transit or LIRR train, and fans heading to the Garden.

The nearest subway is 34th Street-Herald Square for the B, D, F, M, N, Q, R and W trains, two blocks south. Penn Station and Moynihan Train Hall are about ten minutes' walk west along 34th Street, and the PATH station at 33rd Street is closer still. If you are coming from Grand Central, walk across 42nd Street to Fifth Avenue and head south, about 15 minutes.

Koreatown begins one block south on West 32nd Street, so a late plate of soju and fried chicken is easy if the night keeps going. In the other direction, Bryant Park and the New York Public Library's main branch are a seven-minute walk up Fifth Avenue, and this season the park's Winter Village rink opens on October 28, which turns a pre-dinner stroll into a skating detour.

Address: 16 West 36th Street, New York, NY 10018. The Double Smashed is $19, the Fondue Burger and German Burger are $18 each, cocktails are $15, and weekend bottomless brunch runs 11:30am to 4pm. Arrive just before tip-off on Garden nights for the easiest table, book through SevenRooms for groups of ten or more, and ask which tap was changed last.