When one door closes on Grand Street (or, more realistically, many doors if anyone is counting), another opens. Literally — after being vacant for over a year, 312 Grand Street is now home to Quarter Club, a new bar that opened over Labor Day weekend.
Quarter Club is the passion project of friends and respective Brooklyn business owners Frank Bevan (Lake Street and previously Goldie’s), brothers Brian and Dave Vendley (Calexico), and Paul King (Boobie Trap and Party On). The quartet — and many of their friends and friends of friends they’ve made from years of both living and working in Brooklyn — were hard at work on the space for almost a year, though it was a goal of theirs for even longer than that.
“It was always something we wanted to do, especially since we’ve all been friends for a long time,” Brian noted. “A lot of real estate is just timing.”
And the timing worked out, since they had their sights set on Williamsburg from the start and managed to score not just a prime location, but one with significance to them as neighbors.
“I remember the space from coming here when it was Mulholland’s — knowing the history of it, it felt comfy,” Dave recalled. “It’s always nice to add to the community you’re actually in.”
Mulholland’s closed in 2018 after a ten-year run and work commenced on turning it into Ethyl’s, a ’70s-themed disco bar which faced a fair amount of hurdles to get up and running (between the pandemic and a closure for renovations) before quietly closing its doors for good last summer (2023… it’s still technically summer for the next couple days). Since then, the Quarter Club team has completed what essentially amounts to an entire demo of the space, resulting in extensive renovations both inside and out to create a “sports bar that acts like a neighborhood bar,” in the words of Bevan.
“Once you start peeling back parts of the onion, it reveals more,” Dave acknowledged. “We figured it out as we went.”
However, they didn’t leave it all up to chance. Designed with an intentional eye, the exterior was designed and painted by artist Doug Aldrich while the interior features quirky sports memorabilia and decor including an insane amount of trophies, rotating bowling pins, portraits of Dennis Rodman in a wedding dress and Tonya Harding (in tears, naturally), old photos of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro golfing, and an entire fuzzy wall dedicated to André the Giant. Most of the artwork was acquired secondhand, from estate sales or on Ebay.
And if that sounds like a lot, it kind of is — but they still made sure to leave room for more (plus, the space is pretty huge) and for the bar to continue to evolve with the community to suit its wants and needs.
“We want it to be comfortable to everyone, but intentional,” Bevan noted.
This is part of their mission to be, in Dave’s words, “a sports bar for people who don’t like sports bars.” While the four owners themselves are admitted sports nuts, they still want people to feel comfortable at the bar whether there’s a game on or not, and they’re flexible about what that means to different people.
“We want there to be a balance of form and function,” King said. “We’re accommodating, we’ll put on any game.”
And the reception has been positive in its early weeks, with regular patrons ranging from pinball players (the bar has three pinball machines plus a PGA Tour game), enthusiastic baseball fans, those who simply discovered the spot by walking by, and people who just enjoy the food, which they’re continuing to roll out slowly and includes subtle twists on classic bar fare.
Bevan, King, and the Vendleys also give a shout out to other local bars and businesses like Clem’s, Jackbar, and the Four Horsemen for being so welcoming — and for sharing patrons when their hours or number of available barstools differ.
“New places aren’t competition,” Dave said. “There are plenty of people to go around.”