Most karaoke in Brooklyn is a private room, a tablet, and a two-hour minimum. Crown Heights does it differently. Every Saturday night at The C List, the mic comes out at eight, the whole bar becomes the backup section, and nobody has to rent anything.
Saturdays, 8 PM to midnight. No cover. No reservations. Walk in. That’s the entire set of rules. The rest is up to the room.
How it works.
Get a drink first. Happy hour runs until seven, so if you come early you’re paying happy hour prices for the warm-up round. The rum punch is the house move; the Negroni is the regulars’ move.
Around eight the host opens the list. You put your name and your song down, you get a heads-up when you’re two away, and when it’s your turn the room already knows the chorus. It’s a bar with a mic, not a booth with a door, so your audience is everyone. That sounds scarier than it is. By the second singer, it’s the opposite.
You’re on the list. Which, at this bar, is the point.
The unofficial rules.
The room decides. If forty people are singing your chorus back at you, you picked right. If they’re ordering drinks, you picked a deep cut. Both are allowed. One is more fun.
No sad songs before ten. The room isn’t ready. After ten, all bets are off, and a well-timed ballad has cleared the bar of dry eyes more than once.
Duets are encouraged. Groups of six on one song are also encouraged. The mic doesn’t care how many of you there are.
Tip the bartender when you hit the high note. Not a rule. Just what the good ones do.
Best bar on Franklin. The bar to go to. Drinks are a good price, vibes are high, music is bomb.
Nia G., Google review
What always goes off in this room.
Every karaoke bar has a house sound. Ours is Caribbean-inspired cocktails, a Franklin Ave crowd, and a strong lean toward songs everyone can carry. Soca and dancehall get the room moving. Nineties R&B gets the room singing. Anything with a key change gets the room standing.
And then there’s Whitney. The owner’s favorite singer is Whitney Houston, and it shows: there is not a Saturday where “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” doesn’t happen at least once, and “How Will I Know” is the closest thing this bar has to an anthem. If you can sing Whitney, you will not be buying your own drinks for a while.
Getting the owner on the mic.
This happens. Not every week, not on a schedule, and only by request, which is the fun of it. Ask the bartender nicely. Ask the room to ask. If the night is right and the song is right, Craig sings. If it’s Whitney, the odds go up.
We’re not putting that in writing as a promise. We’re putting it in writing as a possibility, and telling you the odds improve after ten.
Coming with a group.
Karaoke night is the easiest birthday in Brooklyn. Nobody has to plan anything: show up at seven, drink through happy hour, and by nine the birthday person is singing whether they wanted to or not. Groups of eight or more, send a message ahead and the bar will hold space when it can.
If you want the whole room, the mic, and the night to yourselves, that’s a private event. Up to sixty people, the sound system, a signature cocktail with your name on it, and a karaoke setup that’s already there. Weekends book three to six weeks out, so ask early.
The plan, start to finish.
Get to 835 Franklin Ave between five and seven for happy hour. Order the rum punch and the jerk fries. At eight, put your name down. Sing something with a chorus. Stay for the Whitney. Leave when they turn the lights up, which is midnight on Saturdays, or one if the night’s really going.
Every Saturday. No cover. Come thru. See what else is on this week on the What’s On page.