Lights, Camera, Cocktail at The Green Room, Sag Cinema's Rooftop Bar

The cat’s not completely out of the bag just yet, so try and keep this to yourself: If you think rooftop bars aren’t a thing in the Hamptons, you don’t know about The Green Room. 

It’s a cozy, contemporary bar with al fresco lounges perched atop the state-of-the-art Sag Harbor Cinema, where, originally, access to the rooftop bar was a perk only available to movie-goers and members of the cinema. 

That restriction has been relaxed, however, and this summer the Green Room is open to the public. 

According to bar manager Deborah Lee, the Green Room — her “baby,” as she puts it — is now welcoming all and everyone upstairs to experience the rare crow’s-nest views of the village and a cinema-savvy approach to community-building. And folks looking for an accessible alternative to the street-level bar scene have taken notice.  

The lid on such a place was bound to blow sooner or later.

“At the beginning, it was Sag Harbor’s best kept secret, and anyone who came here didn’t tell anyone else about it,” said Lee, who’s been working double-duty as both bar manager and bartender while the Green Room found its lane following the theater’s long-awaited reopening in 2021; a devastating fire gutted the original cinema structure five years earlier. 

Said Lee: “It is still not completely out of the bag, but …”

First and foremost, it’s important to remember that the not-for-profit Sag Harbor Cinema is a local gem that not only screens everything from high-profile blockbusters to indie arthouse films, but is also a valuable resource for community enrichment, special events, and educational programs.

The next thing to remember, however, is that the cinema permits movie-goers to take a drink from the Green Room bar into any of its three theaters. It’s pretty common in Europe for movie theaters to serve alcoholic beverages, but the concept has only recently become more mainstream in the states. 

But there’s more! The Green Room also does weekly trivia and industry nights, wine clubs, and live music and card magic on Thursdays throughout the summer — all thanks to Lee’s proactive, locals-first approach to building a regular crowd.

The Green Room’s chief mixologist who has become a real movie buff, Lee got her start in hospitality as a 16-year-old in Ireland.

Now she’s running a serious beverage program that includes a menu of original movie-themed specialty cocktails, like a pink lemonade she created as an ode to Barbie, or the Maverick Margarita — a nod to Top Gun: Maverick that was so popular with customers she made it a permanent part of the menu.

“I love the arts side of it,” said Lee. “Just the fun of tying the movies in with the bar to make it so that we’re a unity instead of just a theater with a bar upstairs. I love to bring everything together and promote the whole building.” 

One of the main attractions has been Lee. She’s stitched together a close-knit group of regulars she likens to the familiar faces on the sitcom Cheers.

If it sounds like she knows what she’s doing behind the stick, she does. She’s been working in hospitality for 27 years, and moved to the United States from Ireland over a decade ago. For the last two years, she has been quietly working to transform the Green Room into a Main Street destination. 

“It all happened very fast. It was a big shock,” said Lee of arriving in Sag Harbor from the city and taking over the bar program at the cinema. “I’d never been to the Hamptons, never. I had no clue. It took patience and hard work [to get to this point] and it’s great to see it come to fruition, because it is like my baby.”

And while she “had many a night here by myself in the beginning,” the growth has been steady and organic. 

“We have a lot of women who come here by themselves, it’s a very space safe, everybody gets talking to each other, everybody gets to know each other,” she said. “There’s been great friendships born just from coming here. You see familiar faces all the time whether they’re just bar-comers or movie buffs. There’s very much a friendly vibe and people have fun.”

The chatter at the bar can range from local affordable housing to the buzz about a recently-seen movie to discussions about the state of the world. “Because of the intimacy of this space everybody gets into great conversations and gets to know each other,” she said. 

She’s also got to know some local faves, as well, supporting in-village collaborations by offering special-edition craft brews from Kidd Squid, Grindstone, and Sage and Madison. 

A spotlight is also on the menu of movie-themed cocktails she’s created from scratch. While there are some items on her menu that are tied into recent hits like the Maverick Margarita, most others are named after Hollywood classics, like the “Of All the Gin Joints,” “The Return of the Bubbles,” and the “Citizen Kane.”

While Lee has been the main bartender and creative force since the Green Room opened, this summer is the first she’s been able to hire help as word spreads and the crowds get a little bigger. She credited her ability to balance multiple roles to her experience working in bars as a teenager across the pond.

“Once you learn the bar in Ireland,” said Lee, “we take it very seriously.”