Elbo Room

Wings are out of this world… overall food is great. If u are going there to eat I would go early or get takeout because the crowd can get a little rouwdy

Neighborhood staple… Billy is cool w everyone… good decent food

What can I say about the Elbo Room? It’s a modest little bar with typical bar food in a dodgy neighborhood. The only thing interesting about it is the Mets-​themed Tiffany lamps. That is, unless you come for trivia night!
On Thursday nights, Elbo room hosts a trivia game, which attracts a good amount of people and around a half dozen teams. I showed up on a recent summer’s night to play as my own team. Although I am a regular player in another city, I was still pretty stoked to be leading at halftime. It was awkward when I was offered a halftime prize of a pitcher of (cheap) beer to enjoy myself. Since I actually wanted to get to my destination, I swapped it out for a free quality microbrew instead.
The second half of the game didn’t go as well, but I did get a hand for finishing close. But I enjoyed my time there and my burger platter. If I can hit town on a Thursday night again, I’d come back and see if I can lead until the end!

My favorite wings in Albany. We’ve celebrated several consecutive Super Bowls with Elbo Room’s wings, and I cannot imagine watching the big game with anyone else’s chicken wings.
The secret behind getting your wings is you call in advance, give them the time you’re looking to pick up your wings, then you show up ten minutes early so that they can start dressing them in your sauce of choice. Take a seat at the bar and your wings will be ready before you finish your first drink.
If you’re looking for chicken wing recommendations; I’d go with the extra crispy Buffalo, as well as the Garlic Parm or Honey Mustard.

This place is sort of Websters definition of the sleeper eatery of Albany. I was heading over in my culture vulture mode to the Spectrum Theatre one evening and checked this place out for some wings. The interior is delightfully divey yet very authentic without tude. The wings are quite good as well. Beer prices well below most of the Delaware Ave Lark Street area. Local vibe too. It’s a great spot too.

I have been going to the Elbow room for years! On Monday night I tried for a I half hour to call and order wings for pickup and it rang busy for 30 min unfortunately Inwent elsewhere.

For this type of city bar, the food was perfect! I had the fish fry in a yummy toasted hot dog bun. Companion had chicken quesadilla which were great. Onion rings perfect. Negatives: out of Sam Adams Light, and no Cole slaw.

Spent a LOT of time at Elbo room for years. Great staff, friendly bartenders, the owner is always out working with his employees. Trivia always had a good crowd which was great! Gets busy on Saturdays with not much room to sit, though still worth a stop for the wings (the pizza is amazing too!).

The lemon pepper garlic wings are the best in town — they are addictive. The other food options are pretty decent. Nothing special. If you go on a Thursday — Saturday night you’re likely to be rubbing elbows with Albany locals and there’s usually a DJ on those nights playing hip hop, reggae and R&B. I’ve been for lunch when there’s typically a crowd from local business. The bartenders are extremely friendly and heavy handed.

Good bar to run inside to have a couple of drinks. Friendly staff and bar patrons.
I do not recommend their «hot» wings, that sauce was the grossest I have tasted! It tasted like someone opened a bunch of sweet & sour packets from a Chinese restaurant and poured over chicken
I must admit their «lemon pepper» wings were the bomb!
They could do better with parking lot, either rid the gate or keep side door opened.

Decent burger, seasoned but overcooked. Options for fries are: steak fries, shoestring, waffle, or sweet potato. I’ll be back to check out more of the menu…

We played trivia at Elbo room a few weeks back. There was a pretty good crowd for trivia, so it was competitive. The food was your basic bar food — which we were expecting. The beer selection was moderate. Nothing much in the craft beer realm, but they had more than just Miller & Bud (I think we got a Sam Adam’s). Overall, seemed like an a-​ok bar, with a good trivia night.

This is a really fun place – a solid neighborhood place for a good drink. The atmosphere is nice and the place itself is pretty clean during less busy times. If you’re interested in how clean the bathrooms are, check out my blog:
(I rate bathrooms in the New York State area on their cleanliness!!!)

Used to love this place when I lived on delaware ave… years ago. Now… not so much. The staff seemed nice enough and the wings were good if not just above average for the area.
But my wife and I were so out of place as customers we couldn’t wait to leave. Very young, thug-​like individuals with a nasty attitude about our presence there. Sorry but I wear my pants around my waist… thats why its called a waistband… everyone else had the «pants hanging off the ass look» .
Sorry, won’t be going back. Ever

I followed the advice of fellow Unilocalers and ordered 12 medium wings. I thought the wings were average at best and the sauce was just poured on with no sense of true cooking. The bar had a nice selection of draft beer and the service and personality of the bartenders (Steve and an attractive girl in training) saved the rating. It is clearly a local bar and filled with all locals. At first I thought it would be a little too shady off of the beaten path but it turned out to be a solid choice since my hotel was across the street. Would I go back, eh. It was convenient. Food service stopped around midnight on a Monday.

Yummy burgers + fresh beer makes it better than Five Guys in my book. The pinball machine is difficult, though, so beware!
There are TVs everywhere you look, which is a bummer in my book.

Top tier wings, on par with the best of anything I’ve ever had. First we started with garlic parmesan wings. Mainly because I rarely see it, and I WANTED it. They were pretty awesome. Later, we got hot wings. They were at an optimal heat for me. A thick sauce. Hot but not too hot. There is a killer option too — that probably has some respectable heat.
Best potato skins. They strangely cut them in half lengthwise, with a depth of about ¼″ on the sides, then drench them in butter and bake them. A layer of bacon gets stuffed in and then a good amount of cheese is put in there to fill the potato. My favorite potato skin.
Bartenders are extremely friendly. This dude was like 6’4 and jacked. Superhero jacked. My friends girlfriend was mystified by how we stared at this guy’s muscles. We all thought he was as sweet as anything, so whatever.
Lots of room. They have foosball, pool, and electronic darts (ehhh, I prefer realism). Went on Saturday night and it surprisingly, thankfully did not have the college crowd. There weren’t many people at all.
I found everything I hoped for here in my trip to Albany. The food is great and I would go here every day if my heart let me. The sandwiches are rumored to be tremendous as well. Next time.
By the way, the name «Elbo Room» — That is a play on words that just spins my mind. Kudos.

Is it a dive bar? A neighborhood bar? Well, I guess it’s both. And it manages to attract a far more diverse crowd than most area bars.
The boy and I went here last week because there were just two bars in Albany showing the latest UFC action and Jillian’s was posting a ten dollar cover. Oh, also we could walk here.
It’s dirty, it’s a little stinky but there’s no cover and the head bartender is a hunky bald-​headed guy. We spent an amusing time here watching this one very drunk and creepy man attempt to «mack it» to a tranny and a blonde woman at the same time. Seriously, the dude kept switching back and forth. Incidentally, his attempt to «mack it» consisted primarily of singing along to whatever hit song was on the juke box and giving the lyrics his own personalized spin by singing them directly to whichever «lady» he was courting at that moment. As the night went on, he went from adding dramatic hand gestures to what was very nearly full-​on interpretative choreography. In short, this guy was pretty much my hero for the night. And when he increased his wannabe harem to include two more ladies sitting at the bar, well, I was just even more impressed.

I was here back in July for an Unofficial Unilocal Event (UYE), the second Albany Wing Crawl with a small group of Albany Unilocalers. The Elbo Room was the first stop of our wing crawl. We ordered some Hot Wings and Honey BBQ Wings (I chose them because I don’t care for hot wings and I want to enjoy the flavors). The wings came with carrot & celery sticks and bleu cheese dip. The wings however didn’t have much meat on them, but the outside of the wings were crispy and coated with ample sauce.
I enjoyed the flavors of the BBQ wings. The hot wings were pretty hot and didn’t burn my mouth. The nice BIG bartender checked up on us offering us reorders on drinks and extra napkins. I got my needed refill on Diet Coke to wash down the aftertaste of the wings. Overall, The Elbo Room is a decent bar for wings and drinks with its own off-​street parking lot.

Respectfully, I submit the name of this establishment is actually, «Elbo Room».
Officially, Elbo was the first stop on the first and second unofficial Unilocal wing crawl. And of the hot wings that I tried (Elbo, Hill Street, Fountain & Graney’s) these were the best.
Granted, we tried the «insanity» or «absurdly hot» or «steroid» or whatever level of hot was hotter than hot. But the sauce had a great combination of flavor and heat. It was thick enough to really coat the wings well, without being too gloppy. And as a result of ordering the wings crispy, we were treated to a serious crust on each wing.
Good show.
Granted, with the extra crisp coating, the interior of the wing suffered slightly, and wasn’t as juicy as some of the other wings we sampled that day.
Some in the group complained about skimpy wings.
1) They are WINGS! Not BREASTS or chicken strips. Wings aren’t about meatiness in my book, they are about skin and fat and butter sauce. But we can agree to disagree on this.
2) Mine seemed perfectly fine, and at the risk of not getting invited back to a third wing crawl, perhaps I picked the meatiest wings?
Please note. My glowing review has nothing to do with the hulking bartender (who was really very nice, if a bit intimidating) threatening violence in response to a second place review.
I am very much looking forward to going back and trying just the regular hot wings. Not that the insane wings were too hot, mind you, but I’m curious if it’s the same basic sauce with less heat, or a whole different animal.
Maybe before the next bout of Unilocal trivia at Susie’s.