New York City / Karaoke Bars
Karaoke Bars
in NYC
The rooms where singing is free and you pay for the drink — not the other way round.
Most bar karaoke in NYC starts between 9 and 11pm — McCarren Parkhouse goes on at 7.
- 28 verified rooms
- 19 free to sing
- earliest start 1:30pm
- 0 in the Bronx
The short version
- Best overallAlbatross Bar in Astoria — 2-for-1 drinks from 5pm on Mondays, free karaoke at 10.
- Best dealAlligator Lounge — a free personal pizza with every drink, karaoke five nights a week.
- Earliest startMcCarren Parkhouse Wednesdays 7–11pm, and Sycamore at 1:30 in the afternoon on alternating Saturdays.
- Cheapest night outBaby Grand’s front bar — $2 a song, no room booking, no hourly rate.
- Never sung beforePlanet Rose (the mic comes to your table) or Marie’s Crisis (the whole room sings, nobody solos).
The best karaoke bars in NYC right now are Albatross Bar in Astoria (free, Mondays and Fridays from 10pm, with 2-for-1 drinks from 5pm), Alligator Lounge in Williamsburg (free karaoke five nights a week and a free personal pizza with every drink), Pine Box Rock Shop in Bushwick (Saturdays at 11pm, and the only bar in the city that states in writing there is never a cover or a minimum to sing), Sycamore in Ditmas Park (karaoke at 1:30 in the afternoon on alternating Saturdays) and Sid Gold’s Request Room in Chelsea (a live pianist six nights a week, $2 off wine and wells 5–7pm). This guide covers bar karaoke only — rooms where you sing to everyone, walk in without booking, and pay nothing or close to it. Renting a private booth is a different night and a very different bill; that lives in our guide to NYC’s karaoke rooms. Nineteen of the 28 rooms below are free to sing.
At a glance
Free rooms first, then the weekly circuit. “Window” is when the karaoke runs, not the happy hour — on this page those are usually two different things.
| Bar | Cost to sing & the deal | Nights | Window | $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albatross Bar | Free · 2-for-1 drinks Mon–Fri 5–6pm, Mon till 8pm | Mon, Fri | from 10pm | $$$ |
| Pine Box Rock Shop | Free, no minimum · Fri till 7pm: $6 draft, $6 wells | Sat | from 11pm | $$$ |
| Sycamore Bar + Flower Shop | Free · Sat–Sun till 4pm: $6 wells, $1 off draft & wine | Alternating Sat | 1:30pm or 9pm | $$$ |
| Alligator Lounge | Free · free personal pizza with every drink | Wed–Fri, Sun | from 10pm | $$$ |
| Sid Gold’s Request Room | $2 off wine & wells, Wed–Fri 5–7pm | Mon–Sat | 9pm–1am | $$$ |
| The Cobra Club | Free, no cover — on the big stage | Fri, Sat | 11pm–3am | $$$ |
| Echo Bravo | Free, no cover | Tue | 9:30pm–12:30am | $$$ |
| Talon Bar | Free, no cover | Wed | 10pm–2am | $$$ |
| Merv’s Bar | Free, no cover | Thu | 9pm–1am | $$$ |
| Lucky 13 Saloon | Free, no cover | Tue | 9pm–1am | $$$ |
| McCarren Parkhouse | Free, no cover — the early night | Wed | 7–11pm | $$$ |
| Roebling Sporting Club | Free, no cover | Fri | 11pm–3am | $$$ |
| Edie Jo’s | Free, no cover | Tue | 9pm–12:30am | $$$ |
| Minnie’s Bar | Free, no cover | Sat | 9pm–1am | $$$ |
| Montero Bar & Grill | Free, no cover | Thu–Sat | not published | $$$ |
| Winnie’s Bar | ~$1 per song · cash only | Nightly | from 8pm | $$$ |
| Up Stairs | Pay per song, no room charge | Nightly | whenever it’s open | $$$ |
| Planet Rose | Nightly karaoke, no booth, no booking | Nightly | from 4pm | $$$ |
| Baby Grand | $2 per song at the front bar | Nightly | from 5pm | $$$ |
| Seventh Heaven Bar & Karaoke | No fee to sing in the main room | Nightly | from 7pm | $$$ |
| Pieces Bar | $6 wells/beer/wine till 8pm · $6 margs & mimosas weekends | Check ahead | till 8pm | $$$ |
| Don’t Tell Mama | No cover, 2-drink minimum · happy hour daily 5–9pm | Nightly | 9:30pm–2:30am | $$$ |
| Marie’s Crisis Café | No cover, 2-drink minimum · cash only | Nightly | 5:30pm to close | $$$ |
| The Duplex | $8 wells, beer & wine Mon–Thu 4–7pm | Nightly | from 9pm | $$$ |
| Sissy McGinty’s | Free to sing · BYO food, pool and darts | Fri | 10pm–2am | $$$ |
| The Wild Goose | Free to sing | Thu | from 10pm | $$$ |
| Mr. Nancy’s | Free, no cover | Thu | 9pm–1am | $$$ |
| The Rock House | Free to sing · happy hour every day 12–7pm | Mon | 8–11pm | $$$ |
Map: where these 28 rooms are
The free weekly circuit is almost entirely Brooklyn, and you can see it on the map. Bushwick alone has five nights.
Pins are numbered to match the table above – tap any pin for the deal and directions.
Free to sing — and the drink is discounted too
The five rooms where the money actually works out. Two of them are the only places in the city where a drink deal is still running while the singing has started. More cheap nights in our cheap eats guide.
Albatross Bar On now
The best karaoke math in the city runs on a Monday in Astoria. Albatross pours 2-for-1 from 5pm, and on Mondays that window stretches to 8 — then the mic goes on at 10. Two hours of half-price drinks served in 16oz glasses, and you still haven’t spent thirty dollars. It bills itself the oldest gay bar in Queens and the Queer Cheers of Astoria, which is about right: regulars, a back patio, nobody performing for anybody. Friday is the other night, running after the 9pm drag show. The Local Move: come at 6 on a Monday, not 9. The 2-for-1 is the entire reason this ranks first and it’s over before most people show up.
albatrossastoria.com · See our Astoria happy hour guide
Pine Box Rock Shop On now
The only bar on this page that puts it in writing: “Never a cover and no fees or minimums to sing.” That sentence is why Pine Box leads the free tier. Saturday at 11pm, big room, vegan kitchen, sixteen taps, and a building that used to make caskets. The Friday happy hour is the other argument — $6 draft and $6 well cocktails until 7pm, which is a Manhattan price from a decade ago. The Honest Caveat: the deal is Friday and the karaoke is Saturday, so you’re picking one. Pick Saturday if you’re singing.
pineboxrockshop.com · See our Bushwick happy hour guide
Sycamore Bar + Flower Shop
Daytime karaoke. First and third Saturdays, 1:30 to 5:30 in the afternoon, in a bar behind a working flower shop. Nowhere else in the city does this, and it fixes the actual problem with karaoke, which is that it starts at 11pm on a night you already had plans. Better still: the weekend happy hour runs until 4pm, so $6 wells and $1 off drafts overlap the first two and a half hours of singing. That overlap is rarer than it sounds — see the note below the table. Second and fourth Saturdays revert to the usual 9pm–1am slot. The Honest Caveat: Sycamore’s own events page doesn’t list karaoke; the KJ’s schedule does. Confirm before you ride out to Cortelyou Road.
sycamorebrooklyn.com · See our Saturday happy hours
Alligator Lounge On now
Buy a drink, get a personal pizza. Still true, still free, still the most famous bar deal in Brooklyn — and the karaoke room is in the back, five nights a week. The pizza is light on cheese and light on sauce and it is not really the point; $1 tickets at the bar buy an extra topping, extra sauce or vegan cheese if you care. This is also the only place here where the deal and the singing genuinely can’t miss each other, because a free pizza has no clock on it. Karaoke runs Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday at 10, Saturday at 11. The Honest Caveat: on-premise only, same day, nothing to go, and the back room fills fast on a weekend. Go Wednesday.
alligatorloungebrooklyn.com · See our best pizza in NYC
Sid Gold’s Request Room On now
A pianist instead of a backing track, and you still pick the song. That’s the distinction worth the Chelsea prices — you’re not singing over a MIDI file, you’re singing with someone who knows a few hundred songs and will follow you if you drift. Six nights: 9pm to 1am Monday through Wednesday and Saturday, from 6pm Thursday and Friday, dark on Sunday. The deal is modest — $2 off wine and well drinks, Wednesday through Friday, 5 to 7. The Local Move: Thursday at 6. The discount is still on for an hour after the music starts, which makes this one of only three rooms in the city where the drink deal and the singing actually overlap.
sidgolds.com · See our Chelsea happy hour guide
Brooklyn’s free weekly circuit — pick your night
Every one of these is free to sing, every week, no cover. Between them they cover Tuesday through Saturday. Two more run the same way and are worth knowing if you’re local: Sandy Jack’s in Park Slope (Tuesdays) and Hinterlands on Church Avenue (Fridays). See also our best dive bars in NYC.
The Cobra Club On now
If you want a stage rather than a corner, this is the one. Cobra Club runs karaoke on the same platform the bands use, Friday and Saturday from 11 to 3, free, no cover. That changes the night: people commit, the room watches, and a bad song is a performance instead of background noise. Coffee and yoga by day, which tells you the crowd skews Bushwick-local rather than bachelorette. The Honest Caveat: the KJ’s schedule also lists a first-and-third-Monday 8pm slot that the bar’s own site doesn’t mention. Weekends are the safe bet.
cobraclubbk.com · See our best dive bars in NYC
Echo Bravo On now
A Tuesday that ends before 1am, which is the right shape for a work night. Echo Bravo is a patio bar with shuffleboard and sports on the screens the rest of the week, so the karaoke crowd is whoever was already there plus the people who came for it — a friendlier mix than a dedicated karaoke room, and a much lower bar for a first song. Free, no cover. The Why: if you’re nervous, sing somewhere the room isn’t only there to watch you.
bravobarparty.com · See our NYC shuffleboard bars
Talon Bar On now
Wednesday, 10 to 2, free. Talon is open until 4am seven days and has three distinct places to stand — the main bar, a heated garden, and a basement room called NO EXIT — which matters more than it sounds when you want to keep talking while someone else sings. Queer-friendly and reliably mixed. The Local Move: the garden is where you go between songs; the basement is where the night goes after karaoke ends.
talonbar.com · See our NYC speakeasies
Merv’s Bar On now
Thursday nights, free, deep Bushwick. Merv’s took over the room that was Dromedary, and enough listings still carry the old name that you should search the address rather than the sign. It’s a cocktail bar rather than a dive, which makes the Thursday karaoke a slightly odd and much more enjoyable fit — better drinks than the format usually gets. The Honest Caveat: no website, so the night lives on the KJ’s schedule and the bar’s Instagram. Check one of them before you go.
See our Thursday happy hours in NYC
Lucky 13 Saloon On now
Tuesday karaoke in a metal bar, which is either exactly what you want or exactly what you don’t. Lucky 13 has a back room, a loud sound system and a crowd that will absolutely let you attempt something in a register you don’t have. Free, 9 to 1. The Why: the song list at a rock room skews differently from the K-town default — if you’ve been waiting to do Pat Benatar for a receptive audience, this is the address.
lucky13saloon.com · See our Gowanus happy hour guide
McCarren Parkhouse On now
The earliest karaoke night in Brooklyn, and the reason it’s on this page. Seven to eleven on a Wednesday, across from McCarren Park, which means you can sing three songs and still be in bed by midnight. Everything else on this list starts at 9, 10 or 11. It’s a cafe and sandwich shop by day, so the room is bright and the food is real. Worth it: if you’ve written off karaoke because of the hour, this is the one that answers that objection.
Roebling Sporting Club On now
A sports bar until the games end and a late-night room after, with free karaoke taking the Friday 11-to-3 slot. This is the one to know if your night started somewhere else and needs a second act — it’s walkable from most of North Williamsburg and it’s still going when the Metropolitan Avenue bars are calling last. The Honest Caveat: 11pm start means the list is long by midnight. Put your name in the second you walk in.
roeblingsportingclub.com · See our Williamsburg happy hour guide
Edie Jo’s On now
The only free karaoke night I could verify in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, and a genuinely pleasant room to do it in — bar and cafe, year-round patio, Tuesday 9 to 12:30. Deep Flatbush Avenue, so the crowd is neighbors rather than a night out that travelled. The Why: free karaoke gets thin south and east of Prospect Park. If you live down here, this is your night, and it’s a short walk from the Q at Parkside.
ediejos.com · See our best outdoor bars in NYC
Minnie’s Bar On now
Sunset Park’s free Saturday, 9 to 1, in a proper cocktail bar rather than a dive. Worth knowing because the neighborhood’s karaoke reputation belongs to the big Eighth Avenue room-rental places — this is the version where you don’t book anything, don’t pay by the hour, and sing to whoever’s in. The Honest Caveat: no website, Facebook only, and the KJ’s own listing has the ZIP wrong. It’s at 4th Ave and 33rd, which is 11232.
See our best cocktail bars in NYC
Montero Bar & Grill
The oldest room on this page and the one with the most character in it. Montero’s has been on Atlantic Avenue since 1939, when it served the men working the waterfront, and the karaoke has been a fixture for decades — Thursday, Friday and Saturday. New ownership took over in 2026 and, mercifully, the main change is that it now takes cards; it was cash-only for most of its life. The Honest Caveat: start times aren’t published anywhere, including by the bar. Turn up after 9 and ask.
crew.fun · See our Brooklyn Heights happy hour guide
Dedicated karaoke bars, no booth required
Places built for karaoke where you still sing to the whole room. If you want a private room instead, that is a different night and a different bill — we cover it in the best karaoke rooms in NYC.
Winnie’s Bar
The name carries a lot of history and a common mistake with it. The original Winnie’s, at 104 Bayard, closed in 2015 and is genuinely gone. This is the successor — second floor, 58 East Broadway — and it is open, nightly, from 8. Songs go in on paper slips with a dollar attached; tip more and you move up the queue, which is the most honest queueing system in nightlife. Bartenders run it off a laptop, no KJ. The Honest Caveat: cash only, no website, and if you search the name you will find a Theater District bar with a similar one. Go to East Broadway.
See our best Chinatown restaurants
Up Stairs
Winnie’s louder, younger cousin, one narrow staircase and two blocks away. Same format — no room charge, you pay by the song, the mic goes round the room — but the energy is closer to a party than a neighborhood bar, and it stays that way late. Neon, cramped, no pretence. The Honest Caveat: Up Stairs publishes nothing — no site, no hours, no prices. Every figure floating around online for this place is a decade old, so I’m not printing one. Bring cash and low expectations about the sound system.
See our best dive bars in NYC
Planet Rose
Wireless mics, which sounds like a footnote and is actually the whole design. At Planet Rose you don’t get up — the mic comes to your table, so the room stays a bar rather than becoming an audience, and the difference in nerve required is enormous. Leopard print, red light, open nightly from 4pm on Avenue A. It closed and came back in 2021, and reports of its death still circulate; it’s open. Worth it: if you’ve never sung in public, this is the least frightening room in Manhattan to start in.
Baby Grand
Two dollars a song at the front bar, and that’s the entire cost of the night. Baby Grand runs private rooms in the back, but the bar at the front is communal — you sing to whoever’s drinking, which on a weeknight is a small enough crowd to be friendly and a big enough one to count. It moved from Nolita and now runs two rooms, Flatiron and the Lower East Side. The Local Move: weeknight, front bar, skip the room booking entirely. You’ll spend eight dollars on songs and get more turns than a booth would give you.
babygrandnyc.com · See our Flatiron happy hour guide
Seventh Heaven Bar & Karaoke On now
A candlelit karaoke bar that is also, separately, a working independent theatre — a combination that has no business succeeding and does. The main room is walk-in and there’s no fee to sing in it, nightly from 7 (Saturdays from 4). Private rooms exist for parties of fifty and up, which is a different product and not why you’d come on a Tuesday. The Why: most dedicated karaoke bars in this city are fluorescent and functional. This one is dark, soft and actually pleasant to sit in between songs.
seventhheaven.bar · See our Bushwick happy hour guide
Pieces Bar
The best straight-up drink deal on this page, in the most storied location: six dollars for wells, beer or wine until 8pm on weekdays, and on weekends $6 margaritas, mimosas and Bloody Marys with $8 Long Islands. Doors at 2pm, so that’s a six-hour window. Karaoke is a long-running fixture here alongside the nightly drag. The Honest Caveat: Pieces doesn’t publish a karaoke schedule anywhere I can verify — their events page is images only — so I’m not printing a night. Check their Instagram the day of. The happy hour, at least, is straight off their own site.
piecesbar.com · See our best gay bars in NYC
Live piano instead of a backing track
A pianist, a room, and no MIDI file. Worth understanding the difference before you go — at two of these you take a solo turn, at one nobody does. More rooms with a player in them in our live music bars guide.
Don’t Tell Mama On now
Write your name and your song on a napkin, hand it to the pianist, and wait your turn. Don’t Tell Mama has run an open mic every single night for decades, 9:30 to 2:30, no cover — and the daily happy hour runs 5 to 9, closing thirty minutes before the singing starts, which is almost funny. The waitstaff sing too, and several of them are better than anyone in the room. The Honest Caveat: two-drink minimum per person and food doesn’t count toward it. The Local Move: arrive at 8:30, drink into the happy hour, put your napkin in first.
Marie’s Crisis Café
Not karaoke, and I’m including it anyway because half the people searching for karaoke actually want this. There are no microphones at Marie’s Crisis. A pianist plays showtunes and the entire basement sings together, badly and at volume, from 5:30 until close, every night. Nobody performs and nobody is watched, which for a lot of people is the whole appeal. The Honest Caveat: cash only, two-drink minimum, and a dollar for the coat check in winter. Go here instead if the idea of a solo turn is the reason you’ve never done karaoke.
mariescrisiscafe.com · See our West Village happy hour guide
The Duplex On now
Every night is open mic at the upstairs piano bar, from 9pm, on the corner of Sheridan Square. Live accompaniment rather than tracks, and the singing is more solo-forward than Marie’s Crisis two blocks away — people take real turns here. Downstairs is a cabaret theatre with its own ticketed shows. The happy hour is genuinely good and genuinely early: $8 wells, beer and wine, Monday to Thursday, 4 to 7. The Honest Caveat: that’s two hours before the piano starts. You’re drinking cheap, then waiting.
theduplex.com · See our best drag shows in NYC
Queens, Ridgewood, and the one Staten Island room
Outside Brooklyn and Manhattan the map thins out fast — see the FAQ for exactly how fast. These four are the ones that hold up. More in our best sports bars guide.
Sissy McGinty’s On now
An Irish dive on Steinway with six dart boards, a pool table, and a bring-your-own-food policy that means you can order from anywhere on the block and eat it at the bar. Karaoke is Friday, 10 to 2. That combination — free singing, no kitchen markup, darts when you’re not up — makes it one of the cheapest full nights out in Queens. The Local Move: get the food from Steinway before you settle in. Nobody minds and everybody does it.
See our best dive bars in NYC
The Wild Goose On now
Thursday nights under the 7 train. The Wild Goose is a proper Roosevelt Avenue pub — pool, darts, live bands on weekends, sport on — and the Thursday karaoke is the neighborhood’s, not a destination event, which is the reason to go. Free. The Why: Woodside is four stops from Manhattan and nobody from Manhattan comes here for this, so you will actually get to sing more than twice.
wildgoosenyc.com · See our best sports bars in NYC
Mr. Nancy’s On now
The only free weekly karaoke night outside Brooklyn on the city’s biggest KJ circuit — every other night that company runs is over the Brooklyn line. Thursday, 9 to 1, on Seneca Avenue. Ridgewood being Ridgewood, the crowd is largely people who moved from Bushwick and brought their Thursday with them. The Honest Caveat: it opened recently and has no website; listings sometimes file it under Brooklyn, which it is not. Seneca Avenue, Queens, on the M.
See our Ridgewood happy hour guide
The Rock House On now
The only karaoke night on Staten Island I could verify from a venue’s own website, which tells you something about how thin the borough is for this. Monday, 8 to 11, free, in a bar that calls itself Staten Island’s only rock venue and books live music five nights a week. Happy hour runs every day from noon to 7. The Honest Caveat: they don’t publish happy hour prices, so I can’t quote you one — but a seven-hour window on a Monday, three hours before the mic, is worth the ferry and the bus on its own.
therockhouserocks.com · See our live music bars in NYC
NYC karaoke bars: FAQ
How much does karaoke cost in NYC?
At a bar, usually nothing. Nineteen of the 28 rooms on this page are free to sing with no cover and no minimum — you just buy a drink. The exceptions are small: about $1 a song at Winnie’s in Chinatown and $2 a song at Baby Grand’s front bar. Renting a private karaoke room is the expensive version, running roughly $5 to $10 per person per hour, and that is a separate guide.
Is there anywhere in NYC with a happy hour during karaoke?
Almost nowhere, and this is the thing worth knowing. Bar karaoke starts at 9, 10 or 11pm, while nearly every happy hour in the city ends at 7 or 8. Only three rooms here genuinely overlap: Sycamore in Ditmas Park (weekend happy hour until 4pm against 1:30pm alternating-Saturday karaoke), Sid Gold’s in Chelsea ($2 off wine and wells until 7pm against a 6pm Thursday and Friday start), and Alligator Lounge, where the free pizza with every drink has no clock on it at all.
What is the earliest karaoke in NYC?
Sycamore in Ditmas Park runs karaoke from 1:30 to 5:30 in the afternoon on the first and third Saturday of the month — the only regular daytime karaoke we could verify in the city. For an evening that ends at a reasonable hour, McCarren Parkhouse in Greenpoint goes 7 to 11pm on Wednesdays. Everything else on this page starts at 9pm or later.
Where is the free karaoke in New York City?
Overwhelmingly Brooklyn, and that is not an impression. The largest karaoke-host company operating in the city runs 18 weekly bar nights: 17 of them are in Brooklyn and exactly one is in Queens (Mr. Nancy’s in Ridgewood). None are in the Bronx and none are on Staten Island. Bushwick alone has five separate free nights, covering Tuesday through Saturday.
Is there karaoke in the Bronx or on Staten Island?
Barely. We could not verify a single currently-running bar karaoke night in the Bronx — the only lead, Man Overboard on City Island, has a strong daily happy hour ($6 wells, $5 beer, 3–6pm) but its karaoke listings have expired. On Staten Island, The Rock House on Seguine Avenue runs free karaoke Mondays 8 to 11pm and is the one we can stand behind.
Last updated: August 2026. Deals and hours change – confirm with the venue before you go. Spot something out of date? Let us know.
