2026 Village Award Winner: 11th St. Bar, 510 East 11th Street
Village Preservation is proud to honor 11th St. Bar as a 2026 Village Awardee! Join us in recognizing 11th St. Bar and the five other remarkable awardees at Village Preservation’s Annual Meeting and Village Awards on Wednesday, June 10th, with emcee Penny Arcade, at the historic Great Hall at Cooper Union. Registration is free and open to all. Click here to register.
Amid the TikTok influencer theater of velvet rope lines at pizzerias, hours-long queues for bagels, and limited edition fashion pop-ups, 11th St. Bar feels like a small act of defiance. It’s the kind of place you assume belongs to an older New York, the one that lives in memory, film, or imagination of the perfect Irish bar: exposed brick, pressed-tin ceilings, warm wood worn just right. Nothing contrived or pretentious, it’s genuinely convivial, easy, and unforced, and cared for down to its edges.
Credit for 11th Street Bar’s many virtues goes to its owners, former bartenders Dan Sweeney and married couple Diarmuid and Meghan Joye, who take great pride in the operation of the establishment. But they inherited a strong foundation when they acquired the venue in 2018. The groundwork was laid by the bar’s founder Brendan O’Reilly, an Irish immigrant who left a long-time bartending gig at the venerable Ear Inn, to launch his own place in 1997 at what was then luthier H.L. Wild’s woodshop.
From the outset, the venue reflected Brendan’s appreciation for both the conviviality of traditional Irish pubs and the energy of their New York City counterparts. It did not take long for the venue to become a popular happy hour hang out for neighbors. When a couple of regulars from the block, musicians Jack Smead and Keith Christopher, proposed bringing live music to the venue, Brendan, in his wisdom, told them to go right ahead. Soon, the bar started attracting customers from further afield, especially musicians and bar tenders. 11th St. Bar is now known as a destination for live music.
Dan moved to the East Village in 1999 and worked as a financial analyst until the 9/11 attacks made him reconsider his career. He redirected his energies toward his bartending job at St. Mark’s Alehouse and toward his fairly successful band, Acquiesce (a name for which he takes no responsibility). One day in 2004, he wandered into the 11th St. Bar and saw then-11th Street residents Jason Isbell talking to Justin Town Earle at one side of the bar and Ryan Adams and the Cardinals sitting at the other. Concluding that this was where musicians hung out, Dan became a regular there himself. In 2010, he became a bartender at 11th St. Bar; and then, in 2018, he acquired it, along with fellow St Mark’s Place bartending veterans Diarmuid (Bull McCabes) and Meghan (Ryan’s Irish Pub).
Every piece of art on the wall has a meaning. From the framed police shield (1947-1976) of Dan’s grandfather, to the H.L. Wild Catalogue, which was the business established in 1876 that used to occupy the space (read more about the history of the building here), to the East Village soccer team jersey that the pub sponsors, and much more, each bears a special connection to the establishment and its owners. These are all items of history that Dan is very proud to chat about and to have adorning the walls.
The bar could not have fallen into better hands. Dan proclaims without qualification his place to be the greatest neighborhood bar in the greatest neighborhood on Earth; and he has made it his mission to make 11th Street Bar live up to this lofty claim. To that end, Dan’s approach could not be more straightforward. He just ensures that everything the bar does, it does very well.
Dan supports other local businesses (and former Village Awardees) by purchasing meat for their food menu from the East Village Meat Market and gets all of his printing done by Santo at The Source Unltd.Print & Copy Shop..
Join us in celebrating 11th St. Bar, alongside five other amazing awardees, at the Village Awards on Wednesday, June 10, at 6 PM at Cooper Union’s historic Great Hall. Register and learn more about all the awardees here!