Deal: Six oysters and a beer for $12
Hours: 5-7 p.m. daily
Address: 95 1st Avenue, New York, NY

Upstate is the best of the best. It's a chill, intimate neighborhood gem with wide selection of oysters (both east and west coast) and local craft beers. The place just works — what more can we say?

Pro-Tip: Since Upstate's on the smaller side, it's tough to snag a spot. However, right around the corner is its also-wonderful sister spot, Edwin & Neal's, where you can get a variety $1 oysters and $5 drafts from 5-7 p.m. daily. We daresay it's almost as good as Upstate if you sit at the bar.

Deal: Oysters starting at $1.25
Hours: Monday to Friday 4-7 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Address: 298 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY

Excellent oysters and New Orleans-esque cocktails are the main attractions at Maison Premiere, a Williamsburg bar with an old-world allure. For the particularly daring, they serve absinthe cocktails — which we highly, highly recommend.

Deal: $1 oysters, $5 beers
Hours: All night Monday; Tues-Fri 5-7 p.m.; Sat-Sun 4-7 p.m.
Address: 96 Second Ave. and 568 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY

The nautical theme can look really kitschy really fast, but Mermaid Inn manages to get the ambiance just right. Seafood-wise, Mermaid Inn's secret sauce is consistency: everything's always pretty good. The oysters were smaller relative to other happy hours, but, hey, they were clean.

Deal: $1 oysters
Hours: 5-6:30 p.m. daily
Address: 688 Franklin Ave, Brooklyn, NY

This Crown Heights favorite serves dollar oysters every day, including the weekend. As a nice bonus, Mayfield doesn’t serve Blue Points, the most common dollar oyster in New York — instead, they usually have a selection of both east coast and west coast oysters available. The cosy restaurant has a warm interior featuring seating pews recovered from an old church in the south.

Deal: $1 oysters
Hours: Mon-Fri, 4-6 p.m.
Address: 75 Ninth Avenue, New York, NY (Inside Chelsea Market)

This hidden, tiny joint in Chelsea Market specializes in seafood, so everything it serves is fresh. You can pair delicious custom cocktails with a variety of raw oysters — they usually have a selection from Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and the west coast, and during happy hour, all of the selections are $1. If you’d like to try a different bivalve, Cull & Pistol also serves clams and scallops on the half-shell. Grab a seat by the bar.

Deal: $1 oysters, $15 carafes of wine
Hours: Opening to 7 p.m.
Address: 247 Broome St, New York, NY

The Ten Bells isn't for oyster connoisseurs, but, let's be fair, not everyone's an oyster connoisseur. Some folks just want to start their evenings with $1 oysters and a decently sized $15 carafe of wine — and that's just a-okay.

The oysters were on the briny side and weren't served on a bed of ice, but they were shucked well.

Deal: $1 east coat oysters (and clams)
Hours: Sunday and Monday all night, Tuesday-Saturday 6-8 p.m.
Address: 221 South 1st Street, Brooklyn, NY

Come for the oyster happy hour. Stay for the ceviche.

The oysters come with an original trio of sauces — tosazu jelly, ginger shallot relish, and chipotle mignonette — which is a cool detour from the standard shallot-vinegar slash cocktail sauce combo. Desnuda also serves tea smoked oysters, which aren't part of the deal, but are worth a taste.

Deal: $1.50 oysters
Hours: Monday-Friday 6-8 p.m.; weekends 5-7 p.m.
Address: 345 Grand St, Brooklyn, NY

The oysters — and the food — are really sort of an afterthought. But when it comes to ambience, St. Mazie goes all in on the Hemingway novel thing. Sultry lighting; not-trying-too-hard speakeasy feel; simple but done-right cocktails.

Pro-tip: Alright, this has nothing to do with oysters, but St. Mazie also has live music later in the evenings, which is worth sticking around for.

Deal: $1 oysters and half-priced drinks
Hours: Monday-Friday: 5-8 p.m.; Thursday: 5 p.m.-12 a.m.; Sunday: 6 p.m.-10 p.m.
Address: 120 Essex St, New York, NY

Perhaps the best part about Essex is that the happy hour extends until at least 8 p.m., which is quite the plus for anyone who can't slip out of work seconds after the clock strikes five. The oysters themselves were creamy, but were not always 100% clean.

Bonus: There's a rather — how shall we put it — unique design incorporating white tennis balls on one of the walls. Makes for a conversation starter, if nothing else.

Deal: $1 oysters
Hours: 4-7 p.m., daily
Address: 1 Delancey St, New York, NY

At first glance this looks like yet another snooze dollar-oysters-and-cocktails spot, but don't judge too quickly. Unlike most of Manhattan's oyster happy hours, Sel Rrose doesn't do just Blue Points. There's a wide selection that all go for a buck, and they were fresh, meaty, and shucked well.

Pro-tip: Shout out to the Lavender Piscine, which features lavender ice that melts into the champagne as you sip.

(And no, the double-R in the name is not a typo.)

Deal: $1 oysters
Hours: 4 p.m.-12 a.m.
Address: 28 Greenwich Ave, New York, NY

Virgola is a West Village wine bar that looks like a 19th century alleyway — more or less what you'd imagine as the setting of an English murder mystery. It seats just about 20 people max, but somehow doesn't feel claustrophobic.

The oysters were nicely shucked, although they were a bit small.

Deal: $1 oysters
Hours: 4-7 p.m., Monday to Friday
Address: 700 E 9th St., New York, NY

Oh, what the heck. We'll throw in a bonus to round out the dozen. The Wayland makes for a good mid-week stopover, especially for a group of friends. The small-ish oysters were on the briny side, albeit nothing a pseudo-Bloody Mary couldn't neutralize.

Pro-Tip: While the bivalves were a fair choice, the real star of the show was the BLT, featuring double smoked pork belly.

What 25 major world leaders and dictators looked like when they were young