Skip to main content
Some dude in Manhattan liked Fight Club so much, he named a bar after it.
Despite writer Chuck Palahniuk being a longtime Portlander, there's nothing remotely Fight Club-themed in the city, as far as we know. (But of course, even if there was, we probably wouldn't talk about it.)
New York City's Durden is a vaguely Fight Club-themed bar that hates bankers.
Upon opening Durden in 2013, owner Eddie Sherman says he didn't want the bar to "be kitsch about it, or too in-your-face," calling it an "homage" to the film, as reported by NY Mag blog Bedford Bowery.
There is, however, a mural where Durden himself appears. Early reviews point to the drinks being named after Fight Club characters, but it looks like those are gone now.
The blog describes the bar as something Tyler Durden probably wouldn't like, with "high white ceilings, exposed brick walls, lit candles, booths of red leather, and three TVs playing Fox Sports News that hang over the lacquered wood bar."
But more than what's playing on the bar's TV screens, it's the vague "anti-banker" attitude that is inspired by Tyler Durden.
The owner got his inspiration from the anti-establishment blog Zero Hedge, where each news article is written under the pseudonym Tyler Durden. According to Bedford Bowery, the bar's design is inspired by the Italian leftist political party Cinque Stelle, an anti-establishment, anti-globalist movement. And when you go to Durden's website, you can click a photo of a glass of whiskey or a glass of white wine. The whiskey takes you to the bar's website. The wine takes you to the Goldman Sachs website. We're not really sure how white wine represents Goldman Sachs.