Why Old Town Bar for the Preakness
Old Town Bar opened in 1892 at 45 East 18th Street, in what was then the dry-goods district below Union Square and is now Flatiron. The room has been continuously operating for 134 years, including straight through Prohibition as a speakeasy with its own dumbwaiter to the upstairs apartments where the bourbon was hidden. The mahogany bar runs 55 feet along the south wall — the longest single piece of mahogany in any New York drinking establishment that has been verified by NYC's historic-bar registries. The pressed-tin ceiling is original. The marble floor tile is original. The two functioning urinals in the men's room are 19th-century Hinsdale fixtures and are individually landmarked.
The bar has been a horse-racing bar since opening. The Preakness, the Belmont, and the Kentucky Derby have been called at Old Town every year that radio and then television could carry the broadcast. There is exactly one television in the room — a small 32-inch flat-screen mounted in the upper corner above the mahogany bar's southwest end, normally tuned to whatever ESPN is showing. On the Saturday of the Preakness the bartender will tune it to NBC at 6:30pm and leave it there until the call.
Why Not a Sports Bar With Twenty TVs
The Preakness is two minutes long. The call lasts roughly 1 minute 55 seconds. Everything before and after is buildup, post-race interview, payout calculation. The race itself is the only thing you need a screen for. One TV is enough. One TV in a 134-year-old room with mahogany and tin ceilings and 60 patrons in a single shared visual line is better than twenty TVs in a Buffalo Wild Wings on Sixth Avenue with 200 patrons all watching different feeds.
Horse racing is a one-screen sport. The bar that respects that is the bar that gets the race correct.
The Pimlico Time Geometry
Pimlico Race Course is in Baltimore. Post time for the 151st Preakness Stakes is 7:01pm Eastern. The NBC broadcast starts at 5pm with undercard races, post-position analysis, the singing of Maryland My Maryland at 6:55pm, and the actual Preakness post time at 7:01pm. The race finishes by 7:04pm. The winning horse blanket of black-eyed Susans is presented at 7:08pm. The trophy is awarded by 7:15pm.
If you arrive at Old Town at 6:30pm, you have a beer ordered before the singing, the room watching by 6:55pm, the race called by 7:01pm, payouts settled by 7:10pm. You walk out by 7:30pm and the rest of the night is open.
What to Drink
Old Town has 20 beers on tap — the rotation includes Brooklyn Lager, Sixpoint Sweet Action, Captain Lawrence Liquid Gold, and a regular rotation of New York State craft. Drafts run $7 to $9. Bottles run $5 to $9. Cocktails are mostly classics — Manhattans, Old Fashioneds, gin martinis — at $14 to $16. On Preakness Saturday the bartender will make a Black-Eyed Susan, the official Preakness cocktail of vodka, rum, pineapple juice, orange juice, and lime, for $14. The Black-Eyed Susan is the Preakness equivalent of the Mint Julep at the Derby — the same kind of overly sweet ceremonial drink that nobody buys outside of race day and everybody buys on race day.
Order the Manhattan if you want to drink Old Town's actual house specialty. The Manhattan was invented twelve blocks north at the Manhattan Club in 1874 and Old Town has been making it at this bar since 1892. The Old Town Manhattan is rye, sweet vermouth, two dashes of Angostura, and a Luxardo cherry. Fourteen dollars. They will make it correctly.
The Food, Briefly
Old Town has a kitchen that closes at 10:30pm. The burger is what the place is known for — beef patty, cheddar, raw onion, sesame seed bun, on a side of fries. Sixteen dollars. The chicken wings are dependable. The mozzarella sticks are surprisingly good. The food is bar food in the most literal 1980s East Coast sense, and it is the appropriate food for watching a horse race.
Pre-race timing: order the burger at 5:30pm, eat it by 6:15pm, second drink by 6:45pm, race at 7:01pm. The kitchen gets slammed at 7:30pm with post-race orders. Eat early.
Where to Sit for the Race
The TV is at the southwest corner of the mahogany bar, mounted high. The seats with the best sight line are the bar stools at the south end — stools 1 through 6 counting from the southwest corner. These fill first. The booths along the north wall have a usable sight line through the room but at an oblique angle. The two-top tables in the middle of the floor can see the TV if you turn your chair. The back room is a different room and the TV in there is showing whatever the back-room bartender chooses.
Strategy: arrive at 5:45pm to claim stool 3, 4, or 5. The bar has 24 stools total. By 6:30pm the bar is two-deep. By 7pm the bar is three-deep but the standing patrons are courteous to the seated patrons — Old Town is that kind of room — and you can see the TV from any seat at the bar regardless of crowd depth.
Betting From the Bar
New York legalized in-state online sports and horse-race betting in 2022. The legal apps that handle Preakness wagers are FanDuel Racing, TwinSpires, NYRA Bets, and TVG. You can place a Preakness bet from your phone at the bar — the apps verify location via GPS, your phone needs to be in New York State, Old Town's location at 45 East 18th is well inside the verification radius. The minimum bet is usually $2.
The Preakness win, place, and show bets on the morning-line favorite are the safest entry-level wagers. The exacta on the top two favorites is the standard $2 bet that pays around $20 if it hits. The trifecta is $1 and pays into the hundreds. Most patrons at Old Town will place a $5 to $20 bet that they treat as part of the cost of the race rather than as serious gambling.
Practical Notes
- Address: Old Town Bar, 45 East 18th Street between Park Avenue South and Broadway, New York, NY 10003.
- Hours: Mon–Sat 11:30am to 1am, Sun 1pm to midnight.
- Preakness Saturday: arrive 5:45pm, race call 7:01pm ET, leave by 8pm or stay later.
- TV: one 32-inch above the mahogany bar, tuned to NBC for the race.
- Cover: none. No reservation. No minimum.
- Burger: $16. Black-Eyed Susan cocktail: $14. Manhattan: $14. Drafts $7 to $9.
- Getting there: 4/5/6/L/N/Q/R to Union Square 14 St, walk north on Broadway to 18th. Or F/M to 23 St, walk south on Sixth.
- Betting: FanDuel Racing, NYRA Bets, TwinSpires, TVG. $2 minimum. Phone-only inside NY State.
Why This Bar, This Race, This Night
The Preakness Stakes is the second leg of the Triple Crown. The Kentucky Derby winner ran on May 2; the Belmont Stakes runs three weeks after Preakness on June 6. If the Derby winner wins Preakness, the Belmont is a Triple Crown attempt — the rarest event in American sports, last completed by Justify in 2018. Every year that a Triple Crown is possible after the Preakness, the Belmont sells out and the search trend for horse racing climbs into the U.S. top five.
Old Town Bar has watched 134 Preakness Stakes from the same bar. The bar is older than the Triple Crown itself, which was named in 1930. The room has heard the call of every horse that has ever won Preakness on broadcast media. Walking into Old Town to watch the Preakness is walking into a continuous cultural object. The mahogany has not moved. The pressed-tin ceiling has not moved. The TV is small. The race is two minutes. The bar holds.
Right on time, May 16 2026, 7:01pm post.
Tags: #preakness #preaknessstakes #preakness2026 #triplecrown #horseracing #oldtownbar #flatiron #rightontime #karpofinds #nyc #historicbars #18thstreet #blackeyedsusan #pimlico
Sources consulted: Old Town Bar · Preakness Stakes · NYRA Bets · NYC Historic Bars Registry
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