The symmetrical U-shaped oyster bar has comfortable stools, the area softly lit by pearl dome lamps that make the bar glow.
"I think the exhilaration and the fun comes after you make the bar and you're falling," Jenn Suhr said after Tuesday's competition.
The setting was nothing if not appropriate: In 1969, a riot at the Stonewall would make the bar forever synonymous with the awakening of the modern gay rights movement in America.
"If the public body has rejected it, it doesn't seem unreasonable for us to say to somebody: 'we are going to make the bar a little higher so you really have to consider about making an appeal'," Mr Hopson said.
But Max Fish is not more of the same; it comes with a respected downtown pedigree, not least because of Ms. Rimkus's founding determination to make the bar a haven for artists, whose work lines the walls.
"Bulls" almost looks like a movie an ex-cop would make; the bar interior, where most of the action takes place, looks like it's lighted with the high beams of a police cruiser.
