Capone's

221 N. 9th St.

(Betw. Roebling & Driggs Sts.) Williamsburg

718-599-4044

Back in 1899, a notorious thug was born in Williamsburg. He made a killing literally bootlegging hooch. Perhaps you've heard of Al Capone. A century later, his surname has traveled history's long road, reaching an ignominious end as recycled cachet.

These days, Capone's is a spankin' new bar on a gritty grey stretch of North 9th. It's far enough from Bedford Ave.'s bourgeois glitz to cause customers en route to clutch wallets and glance behind their shoulders. They'll also need to sharpen their eyes to find the bar: in tired trend-setting form, there's no sign. Instead, search for a sloppily scrawled 221. Grasp the door, like we did last Thursday, and walk into a world where thievery is lauded.

Capone's may lack real mob lineage, but that has not stopped the establishment from stealing the Williamsburg bar scene's two best tricks: Larry Lawrence's second-floor, outdoor smoking patio and Alligator Lounge's gratis pizza.

Larry Lawrence's elevated smoking patio is a great idea to borrow. As for Alligator Lounge, the free wood-fired pizza (with every beer bought) is fine, but the surroundings need work: the Alligator looks like the headquarters of Miami's Jewish Senior Citizen's Shuffleboard League.

Thankfully, Capone's eschewed Alligator's love of teal. Here, exposed-brick walls (God, how often must I write those words about a Williamsburg bar?) decorated with stained-glass hangings and black-and-white gangster photos abut a skylight-studded ceiling. Below-floor-level conversation pits provide a novel twist. They contain seating aplenty for 10 or so tussled-hair Pratt grads to talk beneath an NWA, Weezer and Living Colour soundtrack. Upstairs, moonlit smokers mingle outside, while a balcony overlooks a dark, handsome bar lit by stripper-red light bulbs, which is where we're ordering Bud bottles ($3.50) and whiskey ($5) from a curly-haired blonde.

She pours a plastic cup full of something resembling whiskey in color only, then cracks our Buds and tosses the caps toward a trashcan. Drinks appear before us and Steve barks our reason for attendance: "And pop a pizza in the oven, too."

Capone's has barely been open a month, but judging by the bartender's suddenly pursed lips and lowered eyelids, she has served enough pizza to incapacitate a lactose-intolerant army.

All around, boys and girls with fur-rimmed parkas are living the penny-pinching drinker's dream: drunkenness and dinner. About 10 minutes after ordering, the chef-a short man of indeterminate nationality-delivers a dinner- plate-sized silver platter covered by bubbling, handmade pizza.

"Eat up, damn it, there's plenty more where this came from," Steve says.

I grab a soft slice and take a bite. It's chewy and not very cheesy. Nonetheless, we will devour our body weight in carbohydrates tonight.

Sated, Andrew, Steve and I head to the pool table in back, while Aaron goes upstairs to smoke. While Andrew and Steve rack the table, I enter the bathroom. It is what I imagine living inside a stomach after someone has eaten Limburger to be like: unbearably hot, a bit poisonous and reeking with three kinds of death.

I hold my breath and position myself in front of a urinal. The culprit! Caught in the hair trap is what looks like regurgitated onion pizza. It has baked beneath the radiator's hot heat into a crust as thin as the pizza. My stream does its best to dislodge some onion, then I dash outside.

"Aaron, guess what?" I say.

"No, you guess what," he replies.

"What?"

"There is half a car on the roof."

"What?"

He beckons me to follow him. We walk upstairs and onto the roof. A lattice fence encloses a patio the size of a railroad apartment's bedroom.

"Look through here," Aaron says, gesturing to a crack separating the fence from a second roof level.

I squint. I peek. And, sure enough, half a car is sitting on the roof.

"Well, I'll be," I say. I guess a lack of a garage is no obstacle for man's strange automotive desires.

Back downstairs, the night proceeds with much pool, more beer and, of course, pizza. Capone's grows on us as our bellies expand with Henry the VIII gluttony. The bar feels well-worn without being run down, its crooks providing hiding places in which hungry, hungry hipsters can camp out and sing along to hair-metal bands.

Or vomit. And that's pretty damn important, too.

Ed. note: As this article was going to press, Capone's officially changed its name to 221.