When the Big Apple finally “becomes a city that never sleeps,” there will be very few places to dance the night away.
While celebrity hot spots such as 1Oak are expected to reopen when the epidemic ban is lifted, other popular clubs have already become casualties of Avenue, Up & Down and Vandals, including the deadly disease and its curfew. Other clubs, such as Noir in Chelsea, have turned to restaurants for a living.
The Tao group has closed two of its five nightclubs forever: Vendor on the Bower – a pre-COVID hot spot for celebs like Ariana Grande and the Jonas Brothers – once part of Lindsay Lohan and Justin Timberlake A popular watering hole for.
The Tao Group tried to save the avenue, where international fraudster Joe Lo once dropped $ 160,000 in one night, rejoining the lease of the space, a source knowledgeable of the situation said.
But the landlord decided to buy and sell the building for B&R Tenth Avenue LLC for $ 9 million, according to records. The new owners, a source said, plan to tear down the building to make way for a new office tower.
Fellow club czar Richie Akiva told Side Dish that his West Village club, popular with stars like Rihanna and Tyson Beckford, is also closing up and down. “It had become a big brand but after the epidemic, simplifying things is a better solution,” Akiva said.
The club will reopen its legendary 1O in the Meatpacking District of King City, when the city allows. Where is the infamous club Rihanna hosted an after party Following the Met Gala in 2017 and where former New York player Chris Copeland was kicked out in 2015, two other NBA players were arrested, who were later unfairly removed.
It’s not just curfew that’s killing the nightclub industry – most NYC nightclubs operate in large spaces with few windows and no kitchens, making it harder to pivot during an epidemic.
Noir in Chelsea is one of the few clubs able to make the transition thanks to a part in a partial kitchen that preceded the epidemic.
“We weren’t a deep fryer or a bandit, so we just got creative,” said Noel owner Phil Zelonki.
Zelonski hired an executive chef and created a menu, focused on a raw bar and sushi that “took the pressure off”. And Noir continues to cater to the club’s crowd with a “bottle parade” offered by masked servers who pour more than $ 2,000 in size bottles of Moet Chandan champagne – known as magnums – directly from the public. In the mouth.
“We had to strengthen ourselves,” Zelonki said.
Noor reopened as a restaurant on October 12 for the first time when indoor dining ended in December. It reopened on February 13 in a spacious 5,600-square-foot space with just “six or seven main tables and some high tops” – making it ideal for social distance.
“We are a place for people to get loose. People are still popping the bottles, but on their tables. People enjoy food and music and bottle service and have their own small party safely at their table.
It has been going so well, so far, that the Zelonkee side dish noir suggests that it will continue to operate as a restaurant six days a week early in the evening before it goes to its old self – the old school late night club Before morphing back – when city and state permission.
Sources said that two of Tao’s five nightclubs – Tao Downtown Nightclub and Lavo Nightclub – are also now offering limited restaurant service, while its marquee club is just waiting for it to become inactive.
Eddie Dean, who was the owner of the legendary club Pach NY and now the owner of Shimansky’s in Williamsburg, said he had decided about it.
“We weren’t a restaurant, and we couldn’t go from finding out selling chicken wings on the sidewalk,” Dean said.
However, Dean will reopen as soon as he gets the green light from the city and state.
The owners of the closed clubs say they hope to reopen at a later date, but also acknowledge that this has been hard thanks to the rise of one-off parties in large warehouses in the Outer Borough, promoted on social media Could – a trend that is expected to return. Full strength post-pandemic.
New York nightclubs were already struggling. COVID was the kiss of death, “said Noh Tapperberg, then co-founder of The Tao Group.” We need a mayor who stands for nightlife. Without it, we’ll lose the city that never sleeps. Nightlife That is what makes the city so special. “
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