Where Bohemians Meet…Bohemians

By Curtis M. Wong

When George Suchanek moved from his native Czechoslovakia to New York City in 1965, he sought a life of both opportunity and freedom from communist oppression. As many discovered before and since then, however, city life can be lonely for a newcomer — which is why the now 65-year-old Suchanek, a Prague native, says he was grateful to meet many like-minded Czech expats at the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, located not far from his current home in Astoria, Queens.

“It used to be one of the most popular places for Czechs and Slovaks in New York,” recalls Suchanek, owner of Zlata Praha, a restaurant also located in Astoria. “I used to work there on and off. … There were wonderful, traditional events and plenty of famous people who visited.”

On a mid-October evening, however, Suchanek — who sipped a lager alongside his wife, Eva — was one of a few Czech natives in attendance at the Bohemian Hall, whose adjacent beer garden, which opened in 1919, appears both fixed in time and sprawling given the density of New York real estate. At present, the hall represents a rare juncture where the Bohemians (i.e., those of Czech descent) meet the bohemians, or the scores of students and young professionals drawn to Astoria in surprising numbers who now inhabit the spacious, if slightly gritty, tenements nearby; donning enormous hoodies, jeans and sneakers, they cling tightly to their pints which contesting impromptu games of poker and Scrabble on the long, narrow wooden tables filling the garden. Tonight’s crowd has braved the evening’s raw, rainy weather in honor of the vinobrani, a traditional Czech festival that marks the end of the grape harvest and is mostly notable for the speed in which the carafes of wines typically go down among friends. Yet I can’t help but notice how “un-Czech” the event is — for one thing, a vinobrani should technically be held in mid-September rather than October, and even so, there’s no wine to speak of (Suchanek informs me later the sommelier backed out of the event at the last minute, due to an interfamily feud).

The indifference to tradition doesn’t seem to bother the crowd, as true to form, the draw for most is the beer, or pivo as it is known in Czech. The owners keep two import brews — Staropramen and Czechvar, known throughout Europe as “Budweiser” but distributed otherwise locally due to an ongoing lawsuit with Anheuser-Busch, though the former existed well before its identically-named predecessor — on tap and free-flowing. The accompanying food is greasy, heavy and laden with pork and fried carbohydrates; however, the scent from the grill is beckoning enough to tempt even the most health-conscious of revelers. Here, when it comes to sausages, size matters — the kielbasas and bratwursts are far too large to fit on a standard bun and instead are served with a single slice of rye bread topped with mustard atop a bed of French fries.

While the days of the Bohemian Hall catering mainly to the area’s Czech and Slovak community may be gone, Suchanek isn’t fazed, instead calling the bar and its garden a monument to his nation’s legacy, which he feels is little-known even in the overall scope of Astoria, which is better known as being home to the city’s sizable Greek and Balkan populations.

“New York is a city of immigrants, like me,” he says. “Each nation contributes something to the city’s diverse and vibrant atmosphere, so it’s only natural that we … have such a wonderful place like this to exhibit what [our country] really means.”