Attaboy Team Opens Doors on Diamond Reef Tonight

The team behind celebrated Lower East Side cocktail den Attaboy is opening the doors on Diamond Reef tonight at 1057 Atlantic Ave.

This spot is the first of three openings bartenders and Attaboy owners Michael McIlroy and Sam Ross are planning this year. (The team is also opening The American in Port Chester, New York, and a second Attaboy in Nashville.) Ross and McIlroy’s partner in Diamond Reef is Dan Greenbaum, a bartender at Attaboy and former owner of Avenue A cocktail bar, The Beagle.

Diamond Reef’s bright, vaguely tiki space is a major contrast from the dark and narrow cocktail bar on Eldridge Street. “Attaboy works so perfectly in the LES and in that space,” Greenbaum tells Eater. “We felt like we wanted to branch outside of that, do the same quality of drinks but in a very different way.”

But the team is serving more than cocktails. There’s a slushie machine that will serve Penichillins (a riff on Ross’s cocktail, the Penicillin); beer and wine on tap; and a food menu that lists grilled vegetables, shrimp, and other seafood. There is also a daily happy hour and an outdoor patio for the warmer months.

“A lot of what they do at Attaboy they do for ceremony and for show: juice to order and cut ice to order,” says Greenbaum. “Our philosophy [with Diamond Reef] is to keep it simple: Less is more, kind of make it more loose.”

Take a look around the Diamond Reef space below, and let us know what you think if you stop by.