You’re being summoned to Jury Duty, and time is running out to serve your stint at one of Lower Manhattan’s most unique outdoor bars. The outdoor plaza bar at 31 St. Andrew’s Plaza, which is operated by Sanctuary Courts and counts the city as a landlord, presides over a pocket of space that sits in the shadow of the David Dinkins Municipal Building and the U.S. Federal Courthouse, where it’s winding down its fourth season in operation.
The location draws lawyers, clients, journalists and passing-by tourists, and often serves as a front-row seat to media scrums and traffic from high-profile trials. That prime real estate makes it a sneaky spot for power drinks, as well as a place to gather your breath after cutting through some municipal red tape or a place to celebrate a court or bureaucratic win with tap beers. You can also grab food from the kitchen, with menu items including bar food with on-theme names like the Judge (a cheeseburger) and the Citizen (just a hot dog, the most American thing to eat).
We stopped by on a recent overcast September happy hour and the bar was bouncing. A group of four friends, all in their 70s, and with a slight sweat from the late September humidity, raised cocktails and clinked their plastic cups together. They had just finished walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, and stumbled upon Jury Duty as a perfect spot to celebrate their accomplishment that day. They were all from Long Island by way of Vermont and other places, but were having an old friends’ meet up in the city.
“We’re playing tourist today,” one of the women told us. Her friend took a look at the looming stone buildings around the bar and guessed that if one were called to jury duty in Manhattan, it would be quite intimidating. “It must be serious!” she said. (All the more reason to grab a drink or three once dismissed.)
Indeed, the bar’s mood can often match the surrounding circus in Foley Square, where major players come through for big name trials involving the likes of Sam Bankman-Fried, President Donald Trump or any other high-profile figure, with tables filling up quickly during splashier cases. And much like the courthouses’ famed cafeterias and elevators, the bar can draw players from both sides of a case…at the same time. As owner Bogdan Kumpan told Inc. in 2023: “It happened once that people literally cried because they lost their case, and there were happy lawyers on the other side of the bar. I don’t know if they were from the same case, but at that moment, I was like, this is awkward.”
If you’d like to come to your own verdict about Jury Duty, note that the bar plans to temporarily close sometime this month, weather depending, until outdoor drinking season resumes in April, so report for duty when you can. Consider it your civic responsibility.
