If you want to pick up rich married men — some of them are even cute — waiting to catch the 7:07 home to Greenwich after work,

the Saloon at Grand Central Oyster Bar is your place. Through the swinging barroom doors, you can have a Glenfiddich with your Malpaques and Belons and check out guys with loosened ties who don't seem that eager to get back to the suburbs just yet. All right, so most of them are investment bankers. Or securities lawyers. Or middle managers at large corporations whose mere six-figure salaries are augmented by stock options that won't mature for years. But hey, the place reeks of illicit, extramarital sex of the old-fashioned, stodgy variety — which is, of course, a perfectly serviceable kind.
Between the transient anonymity of a train station and the oaky, tweedy familiarity of a place that has been around almost forever, there is something deeply romantic about the Saloon. The wood paneling is real wood, and the regulars have a strangely regular feel about them. Fat old ladies who sit in polyester shirts reading Family Circle at the bar will give you two low-tar Vantage cigarettes when you ask to bum one — and they'll even tell you to keep the lighter.
But best of all, men who look like they haven't had a good time since before the Carter administration and their similarly tormented sons flirt with secretaries — excuse me, assistants — who wear stockings and garter belts from the Victoria's Secret catalog and are hoping to be somebody's second wife. God knows if true love has ever been found over oysters and vinegar served on the red-and-white checkerboard tablecloths, but if you actually want to neck, there's a red velvet couch shaped like collagen-injected lips inside the ladies' room; for a few dollars, the nice attendant will look the other way and maybe offer you some Scope. Blessedly, since AT&T has yet to provide cellular service underground (or almost anywhere, in my experience), there are plenty of payphones for calling the little misses to say, Honey, think I'll be working late tonight.

The Saloon at Grand Central Oyster Bar
Grand Central Terminal, New York
(212) 490-6650
Recommended drink: Oyster Martini
(Photograph by Florian Franke)

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