NEW YORK — The first fans to join the line for the Honey Deuce cocktail on the opening day of the US Open main draw reached the front of it Sunday evening, after the tournament had ended, according to concession staff at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
The line formed at 11:02 a.m. Aug. 30 outside a bar near the Arthur Ashe Stadium plaza and, according to a staff log, advanced roughly 300 yards over the following 14 days. Its first members missed the entire tournament, including Elena Rybakina’s three-set win over Aryna Sabalenka in Saturday’s women’s final and Alexander Zverev’s four-set win over Ben Shelton in Sunday’s men’s final. The Honey Deuce, a vodka cocktail garnished with honeydew melon balls and sold only on the tournament grounds, was priced at $23 this year, unchanged from 2025.
“We just took it one person at a time. You can’t look at the whole line. You’ll go crazy,” said Denise Farraday, 46, of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., who was third in line. “We controlled what we could control. We stayed in our lane, which was the line.”
The Reporter investigated each of these claims. Farraday did take the line one person at a time; there was no other way to take it. She did control what she could control, which, according to fellow linegoers, was a folding chair and a bag of pretzels. Her lane was confirmed to be the line. A fourth claim, made by the man behind her, that the group had “left it all in the line,” was also investigated, and was found to be literally true: the line, by its second week, contained four tents, a grill, a portable generator, a book club, and a functioning mail slot. Two people who met in the line on Sept. 2 were married in it on Sept. 9 by a man from Pittsburgh who said he was ordained online and was 61st. The reception was held in place. Guests were seated by their position in the line, and the cake advanced with them. On the second Saturday, members organized their own tournament, played with melon balls against the side of a food truck, which a ball kid reassigned from the practice courts officiated for several hours, calling every ball out.
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, said the Center measured the line’s average speed at 0.52 inches per minute, a figure she said was “competitive with most glaciers and several airport security checkpoints.”
“What we cannot yet explain is why nobody left,” Teller said. “Each member could see that the line was not moving, and each member also saw that the people ahead had waited longer, and concluded that the drink must therefore be worth it. The line was, in effect, its own advertisement. Further study is needed.” The Center has applied to study next year’s line and has been told to get in it.
At 7:48 p.m. Sunday, Farraday and the two people ahead of her reached the counter, ordered, and paid. Asked how the drink was, Farraday said it was “a game of inches,” then clarified that she meant the line, and that the drink was “good, honestly.”
She then rejoined the line for the 2027 tournament, which begins in about 50 weeks. Concession staff said Monday that the line had already moved 4 feet.