Pianos

On Friday nights, an influx of jerks wearing Oxford shirts and glassy-eyed jerkettes wearing tiaras turns the intersection of Ludlow and Stanton into Beelzebub's anus. Piano's, caught in the undertow of this wretched bowel movement, can be an unbearable mess. But during the afternoon, the bar, restaurant, and performance venue is a winner: Scruffy skaters, LES artistes, and hooky-playing yuppies slam $4 frozen margaritas until 7 p.m.—making it a reasonable surrogate for the mythically rad but now-banned portable beverages from nearby El Sombrero. "No one would expect me to be here," says frequent visitor Jah-Jah, a vocalist from electro-punk outfit Ninjasonik. "But all the staff are derelicts like me, and I can bag hot Midtown babes." Put down a cheeseburger with a $3 pint of beer and escape, Persephone-style, before things descend into hellishness.