Piątkowe Picie: My Five Local Bars While Living In Bielany, North Warszawa

“Nothing but memory, memory” – Manic Street Preachers.

The idea with my Piątkowe Picie series was to write about bars and cafes every Friday. I started this website and blog project as a joke in December 2016, and in jest in a time of deep travel weary depression. Life got way too busy after that. I had written about 1000 blog post ideas to write on here. I’ll never find the time to write them on here. I couldn’t duplicate a me. To keep a series going every Friday is just too intense!

“If you can understand the me, then I can understand the you” – Metallica.

You see, NIMIP, Ulsterczyk is a busy little boy. Depression couldn’t halt me. I run three blogs, ten websites, ten social media pages, a teaching business (I teach creative and business English online and face to face) and I still have time to travel the world.

In 2019 I moved to the Warszawa district of Bielany. Bielany is in North Warszawa. I previously had lived in Śródmieście, Praga Północ, Imielin (briefly) and Ochota. In Bielany, I resided with a Ukrainian lady, Maria. I lived on the main thoroughfare, Ulica Broniewskiego. Even in the same city, I’m nomadic. I get bored of the mundane. I abhorr repeats, monotony, copycat days. Sleepless nights don’t exist in a Jonny Blair world.

“I can’t sleep cos the world won’t wait”- Noel Gallagher.

All in all, I spent about 15 months living in Bielany (na Bielanach) and these were my local spots. I miss them, but life goes on.

1.Pub Tato

This cosy joint was once my local bar. Pub Tato is a quirky hideaway unapparent from its outside door. It also featured at the start of my first Poland-based book, I Went To Gdansk With Somebody.

This nondescript thin door sandwiched in between a Żabka and a kebab joint opens into a long narrow bar which has three sections. Pub Tato is a surprise.

Welcoming owners Agnieszka and Krzysztof run a successful business here. Upstairs is an open bar to chat away to the world. There is live football on the television, and cheap beer and shots. It is probably the place where I learnt the most Polish, just chatting to locals.

Downstairs is a smaller room, to cope with overflow. Wall art includes Robert Lewangolski. Out the back is a beer garden.

2.Piwna Sprawa

I wrote about my favourite craft beer bars in Warszawa and Gdańsk before. Piwna Sprawa was included.

Small yet cosy and close to my mate Rafał Kowalczyk, this is where I went if I wanted a drop of good beer. WiFi, football, great staff.

3.Bar Struna

Pulling the strings, hosting parties and showing live football this bar sits shining atop a balcony section of a shopping area on the reverse side of my old flat.

I’d sometimes eat pierogi, tatar or a burger here in Bar Struna over a few pints of Tyskie. It’s perhaps the swankier upmarket option in this district.

4.Pub Na Conrada / Aramis

This was a small local bar, we usually called it “Aramis”. The cheapest, dingiest bar in the area but very cool. You could just chill out in here. When I first moved to Bielany, I realised that I had slept near here twice before, near Pub Na Conrada. The first time was in 2007 in a Nurses Hotel. The second time was to stay with my cool friend Kasia Powierza, who hails from Biskupiec, and who I met in Gdansk.

It was here on a Wednesday night in March 2020 that I sat drinking beers with Rafał Kowalczyk whilst watching Liverpool v Atletico Madrid. Little did we know it would be the last beer in a bar for two months. Two days later, coronavirus hit and the lockdown all began.

5.Bar Hutnik

For pizza, beer, football and pretty girls working, Bar Hutnik was a top spot. The interior decor is fancy and a shock.

The bar is also linked to local football club Hutnik Warszawa and they are also big Legia Warszawa fans. I watched the famous Bayern Munich 8-2 Barcelona match here.

These are only some of the bars, pubs, cafes or restaurants in Bielany of course – I went to a few others and there are many many more. Since leaving the neighbourhood of Bielany in September 2020, I left all those bars behind. I’ve since lived in Grochów and Powiśle. I really do plan to write about all these places sometime!

Happy Friday everyone. Slaínte! Na zdrowie!