UPPER WEST SIDE, MANHATTAN
The Mermaid Inn
The neighborhood oyster bar, resurfaced on Columbus Avenue with its happy-hour ritual intact.
The Mermaid Inn has been the neighborhood's answer to a New England oyster shack since the mid-2000s, and after its longtime Amsterdam Avenue room closed in 2022, it resurfaced in 2024 on Columbus Avenue at 76th Street — a few blocks from the Museum of Natural History, with the same nautical ease intact. Rope and weathered wood, a chalkboard of the day's oysters, lobster rolls without ceremony.
The happy-hour oysters remain one of the Upper West Side's most reliable small pleasures, and the room works equally well for a low-key date or a solo seat at the bar with a glass of something cold. It ends, as it always has, with a complimentary little cup of chocolate pudding and a fortune-telling fish — a ritual the regulars would riot to lose.
Editor’s tip
Sit at the bar at happy hour, work through a dozen oysters, and save room for nothing — the pudding comes anyway.
Make an evening of it — beautiful stops nearby
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Editorial draft — core details last reviewed October 12, 2026. Confirm practical details with the official site before you go.