Santas come to Sunnyside for charity pub crawl

The Santas arrived in Sunnyside to celebrate a festive night for charity.

Sunnyside’s Boulevard Bars, a collective of 10 bars and restaurants on and around Queens Boulevard, held their Second Annual Sunnyside Santathon pub crawl for charity on Saturday.

All who took part in this year’s Santathon were dressed in their best Santa attire, and some even came as Santa’s little helpers.

During the event, participants picked up $10 wristbands from the 10 participating bars, providing them with $3 drink specials.

The participating bars were Bar 43, The Courtyard Ale House, Maggie Mae’s, The Gaslight, Arriba Arriba, Sidetracks, Molly Blooms, PJ Horgan’s, McGuinness Pub and Bliss Street Station.

Brian Scutch, 27, from Bayside heard about the holiday event from his friend Travis Silverstein, 29, who lives in Sunnyside. The two friends decided to put on their best Santa hats and start their crawl at Bar 43.

“Who wouldn’t participate?” said Scutch, 27. “You’re given the opportunity to drink with fellow Santas.”

Silverstein knew he had attend this year’s Santathon after moving in to the neighborhood too late last year to join the inaugural pub crawl.

“I love Christmas,” said Silverstein. “Christmas is one of my favorite holidays of the year.”

All money raised at this year’s festive bar crawl will go to buy toys for local kids in need during the holiday season. During the next few weeks the group plans to go out to buy the toys and personally donate them to local organizations.

“When you see the smiles on kids’ faces, you know it’s all for a good cause,” said Nicholas Murphy, general manager at Bar 43, who hopes to surpass the almost $5,000 collected during last year’s Santathon. “We want to try to keep it clean and no trouble. We want to have fun and raise money for the children.”

Each bar is also collecting new, unwrapped toy donations until Christmas.

“Honestly it’s all for the kids to get toys for Christmas,” said Patrick Burke, owner of The Courtyard Ale House, who saw the amount of participants triple this year. “It’s growing, which is great to see. It’s a lot of fun, I’m really looking forward to the night.”

During last year’s inaugural Santathon, Sunnyside’s Boulevard Bars collected almost $5,000 and hundreds of toys. Toys were donated to St. Teresa’s in Woodside, St. Raphael’s in Sunnyside, the 108th Precinct, the Metro homeless shelter on Queens Boulevard, Hour Children Center in Long Island City and more.

For more information on Sunnyside’s Boulevard Bars, click here.

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