Legendary Brooklyn Heights dive Montero is on the cusp of being sold

Brooklyn Heights’ legendary nautical dive bar Montero is set to change hands soon, with the Montero family planning to sell the drinkery to a pair of businessmen who also own a string of nautical bars in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Brothers Alex and Miles Pincus and their hospitality group Crew are preparing to take the wheel of the 86-year-old bar. At Tuesday’s meeting of the Health, Environment and Social Services Committee for Brooklyn Community Board 2, the committee unanimously approved the request for a new liquor license for the Pincus brothers, a first step before a full Community Board vote and then a determination by the State Liquor Authority on whether to give the new owners the license they applied for.

The Montero family itself has heartily endorsed the brothers. Pepe Montero, whose family has run the bar for its entire existence, submitted a letter to the community board in which he suggested that the sale to the Pincus brothers was a long time coming and that it will allow him to retire while feeling like what he called “my life’s work” is in good hands.

“I have known Alex and Miles for many years,” Montero wrote. “We’ve been friends for a very long time, and over the years I’ve more than once gently suggested that they should be the ones to take over this bar when the time comes.”

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Montero wasn’t ready to say the sale was a done deal. The Community Board committee approval this week “doesn’t mean anything.” The next step, he said, is to “see if they can come up with the money to buy it.” 

Other Brooklyn Heights residents and institutions also wrote to the community board to support the sale and the license transfer, including Brooklyn Bridge Park President Eric Landau and author and journalist Brad Thomas Parsons, who wrote about moving into the apartment above the bar in March 2020.

The license application doesn’t indicate the handover from the Montero family to the Pincus family will bring any great changes to how Montero operates. The pair are still sticking with the bar’s 4 a.m. closing time, and fans of the Thursday to Saturday karaoke nights can rest easy: the space on the application that indicates plans for music and entertainment specifically says “Live music component will be karaoke, consistent with current licensee’s operations.”

The brothers Pincus are planning on making use of the bar’s kitchen, bringing back to life the “Grill” piece of the “Montero Bar and Grill” name. The application suggests that the menu will consist of a $12 smashburger, $10 hot dog, $6 french fries, $8 cheese fries and $10 chili cheese fries, a state of affairs that may put an end to the practice of ordering pizzas to the bar during karaoke or refueling with samosas from next door’s Urban Deli.

This is not the first time Montero has possibly been on the block this century. In 2015, the Montero family and their neighbors weighed selling all seven buildings on the piece of Atlantic Avenue between Hicks Street and an on-ramp to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The sale never happened, but ten years later Pepe and his wife Linda sound ready to get out of the bar game as Pepe creeps up to 80 years old.

“I’m ready to retire, spend real time with my wife, and finally enjoy traveling without worrying about what’s happening behind the bar every night. Alex and Miles taking over Montero’s makes that possible,” he wrote in his letter of recommendation to CB2.

Montero confirmed to The Groove that he’d like to retire “if possible,” he said. “If not then I just keep working.” 

Back when south Brooklyn was all about the seafaring industry, Atlantic Avenue was awash in longshoreman bars, and Montero is the last of them left standing. The bar was founded in 1939 by Pepe’s parents, Pilar and Joseph Montero, and the current iteration has been around since 1947, when BQE construction forced the original to close. 

The Montero family has been an anchor in the neighborhood on both sides of Atlantic Avenue for decades: Emma Sullivan, who formerly ran Long Island Bar which is across the street from Montero, was actually the sister of Joseph Montero, who opened the eponymous bar. Montero also has plenty of literary heft behind it. Frank McCourt lived above the bar in the 1980s, and the director of the movie version of ultra-grim urban classic Last Exit To Brooklyn filmed scenes at the bar. 

In the decades since the docks have emptied of industry, the bar has become less of a post-work haven for dock workers and more of a neighborhood haunt, also drawing karaoke-loving Brooklynites and various celebrity drop-ins, including Matt Damon and the Hemsworth Brothers, Phoebe Bridgers, Clairo and Ayo Edebiri, and Mike Myers.

After publication Crew sent a comment promising the bar's 'character and core' will remain as is.

"The Pincus’ will run Montero’s much as it has been since 1939: with its original boards and fixtures, warm low lighting, interiors adorned with patrons’ souvenirs of life at sea, and cloudy glass windows, all bathed in the glow of its iconic vintage neon sign," the company wrote. "It remains a home for high-seas tales, karaoke-loving revelers, and solitary imbibers, with modest updates and an expanded cocktail menu. A walk-up kitchen counter in the back will offer a concise menu of indulgent late-night bar food, while, in the spirit of The Montero family, family-style dinners will be served on Sunday nights."