Five Things to Know About: Blue Ruin Bar

This Hell's Kitchen watering hole cut the ribbon on Thursday, at a time when dive bars are the new NYC fetish. Will you become one of its regulars?

1. The faces behind Blue Ruin are Kal Narvilas (owner of the East Village's Kabin, with its kountry kottage theme), and Michelle Gascoine, who tends bar at the latter. Quoth Gascoine on the vibe: "Gangs of New York meets McSorley's meets Hogs & Heifers."

2. Blue Ruin's staffers have serious trash-bar pedigree: Some of those lovely barmaids were poached from West 17th Street joint Red Rock West -- yep, that other boots-on-the-bar joint where dancers spit shots into patrons' mouths.

3. Happy hour is two-for-one everything from 5PM to 8PM, but impoverished types can stick around after that and suck back $2 Schlitz and $3 Miller High Life.

4. That floor looks pretty old, right? Well, yes and no. It's newly installed, but it's actually 100-year-old pine from the roof of the Pepsi-Cola factory in Queens.

5. Grub Street has a slideshow! Keep your eyes peeled for the copper ceiling, the antique cash register and the (apparently, no-country-allowed) jukebox.

Bonus: "Blue Ruin" was the name of the eye-popping hair color Kate Winslet's character wore in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. (It's also old English slang for gin.)

Blue Ruin, 538 Ninth Ave., nr. 40th St.; no phone yet.

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