The Coliseum Bar & Restaurant

Profile

Much like the bland Robert Moses-era convention center for which it’s named, The Coliseum epitomizes urban banality: It serves its purpose (ample booze and inoffensive carbs) without much personality or style. An institution since the late 1970s, the pub was renovated in 2004, supplementing its bar-snack menu with entrees like Parmesan-sprinkled Angel Hair Primavera and pub standard Shepherd’s Pie. But the stone tile floors and exposed brick, paired with walls painted retirement-home coral and butter-yellow, seem institutional and dated. ESPN-blaring flat screens and ceiling-mounted speakers outblast most (sober) conversation. Still, tourists and day-jobbers wash down passable onion rings and scallion-loaded potato skins (piled with sour cream from clear plastic cups) with their Stella and Blue Moon brews. Juicy burgers are fine for diet-blowing flavor; the Super Burger variation is a gargantuan, tasty mountain of beef, cheese, bacon, sautéed onions, and mushrooms, crowned with BBQ sauce. — Candace Taylor

Bar stays open until 4 a.m. nightly