Central Park n’ West
“I know, I know, I know, I know, I know it’s a mess,
but you’ve got to be crazy to live in the city, and New York city’s the best.”
My time living and working in NYC hospitality and nightlife was amazing. Below in no particular order is a list of some of the places I worked at, worked on, and others I was fond of, along with some memories.
Hotel Chantelle was opened by the guy behind Sweet Ups and Royal Oak, both Williamsburg dance party hot spots for a moment. I believe he was bought out by his partners within the first year. Ludlow Street was a very different place 13 years ago, and the club relied on private parties to start, including some very adult stuff. The space has gone through a bunch of physical changes over the years, all good. It’s a phenomenal, well-run space today.
Early Friday nights were burlesque, with Calamity Chang, Stormy Leather, and many other amazing performers. Monday nights were a sort of industry night. It was just me, manager Matthew Green, a barback, a doorman, and a dj. One of my favorite nights ever.
Early on, we got some names who came through. Mike Dirnt liked cozying up in one of the booths. Aziz Azari drank Grey Goose cranberry. I teased Karen O once for ordering a water. I don’t think she liked that. I love you, Karen!
All three floors were designed by Steve Lewis, another good friend.
I can’t remember when I worked at this nice little wine bar on the Upper East Side, but it was early on in my time in NYC. To this day, I’ve never had a better gnocchi dish or glass of Pinot Noir.
After my shift, I’d take a cab down to Union Square and have a late (early) meal at Coffee Shop.
Small, very beautiful space. I worked the first floor, but at the time, the basement space was the only bar that got busy.
Tiny Fork lasted just a year, and I was only there a short time before I found other work. But it was one of the most beautiful, tightly designed places I’ve ever seen. They really spared no expense, including the light blue dyed leather banquets that promptly suffered high heel punctures. The basement was equally impressive. I’ve never worked at another place where I had to tend bar and dj simultaneously. I made it work.
I worked at Eric Goode’s baby just after its heyday. No Beige for me. Still, it was designed and built so beautifully, despite the lack of celebrity elbow rubbing, it never really lost its allure. It also was so versatile, served so many different people at so many moments. The front bar and dining room were designed like a modern European bistro that opened onto the garden space.
Most of my time here was under the care of Heather Barnard, a very rad lady.
This is where I started tinkering with Space. On the weekends, I pushed the large stools away from the bar and put them against the room separator. People could still sit, but not camp at the bar and prevent others from ordering. Weekend sales went up. Another time, the in-house repairman was working on some plumbing. The layout of the corner station was always odd to me. The soda gun was directly over the sink, which was tucked deep in the corner, with a beverage fridge to the left. So, while the repairman was working on the plumbing problem, I asked him if he wouldn’t mind switching the sink and fridge placement, and move the soda gun over. I did this expecting to get told “no” in more words than necessary. But it happened, and all of a sudden, I had a very efficient corner again (like with Hotel Chantelle.) Weekend sales went even higher.
Another really beautiful, well-done space. The whole hotel is gorgeous. I enjoyed the ground floor bar, but I was at a point in life where I did not want to work brunches anymore. I never tended bar at the Top of the Standard, but it didn’t bother me. I had plenty of fun not working in the Boom Boom Room. All the stories and reputation notwithstanding, I was surprised how well lit the space was.
It was a fun time.
An impressive space, laid out similarly to Hotel Chantelle. Nightlife politics are definitely a thing, and I was more interested in doing good work and making money than playing the game. I wasn’t here long. The bar used to be where the booths are now in the photo. I think it’s a great change. This is where I got to spend an evening tending bar for Dennis Rodman. The man’s hands are bigger than you can possibly imagine.
Not my first job in the city, but the one that sort of started it all. One of the partners was part of the same team as Dylan Prime and Clover Club. This isn’t where I started bartending, but where I really was able to hone skills that would serve me the rest of my time behind the bar in NYC. My partner was the bar manager, Kiernan. K was from Trinidad. He was as tall as me, built the same, but somehow had at least 20 pounds on me. He was missing good portions of two fingers, the result of being a professional rugby player back in the Caribbean all before the age of 30. Great guy, great bartender.
One of my regulars was a tall, beautiful older woman who looked 20 years younger than she was. Not long after she started coming in, I discovered she was Bob Weinstein’s assistant. Many of our talks began with things like, “So, Bob threw a can of Coke at my head today…”
Her “lunch” was a glass of chardonnay and a Grey Goose on the rocks.
The drinks were great, the food was very good, and the place was gorgeous, if not completely overbuilt. It never once filled up. In hindsight, the whole thing felt like one big money laundering scheme, especially after meeting some of the other partners. I felt like I was back at my grandfather’s card table. But if nothing else, working here lead to one of the most surreal experiences of my life, tending bar at the Spiegelworld VIP lounge on Pier 17.
I’m going to be honest; I can’t remember if this was the inaugural 2006 run, or the 2008 return. What I do remember was in addition to the Absinthe performance, there was also the Gazillionaire’s Late Night Lounge, which was exactly what is sounds like. Volki and Penny, the originators of the characters, were outrageous and incredible.
I got pulled on stage one night for a round of “What would you do for a dollar?” I think I won, if there was such a thing. The dollar came from a wad of cash that served as a codpiece for the Gazillionaire. Thankfully, he pulled it out himself.
There was also The Skating Willers, Wanda and Jean-Pierre. Cirque acts are varied and always impressive, but this act was truly unique- this was a legit old school circus act, complete with a lineage. I cannot begin to imagine the training for this routine. There’s no safety net when you’re spinning around on roller skates, tossing your partner around, who’s locked around your neck by their ankles, their head coming inches from the floor. Go watch videos, it’s incredible.
The bar was a cut out, done up shipping container, complete with dancing pole and velvet banquets, placed right on the water’s edge. I don’t I ever had a better view at any job ever again.
Working at Tribeca Grand was another interesting moment. Its reputation was still intact, due in large part to the programming there. But there were signs of stress. There was no bar manager and a weird hierarchy. Even though there was a team of competent bartenders, it was the barbacks running the show. I could say a lot but in short, they were not good barbacks. Among other things, hey would make drinks on their own and send them out to tables; their drinks were abysmal. Still, it was a fun time. There was a separate event room behind the Church bar. The only show I remember was Lady Miss Kier. Yes, she sang “Groove is in the heart”. Yes, it was great. Tony Danza came in for some art show one night and we hit it off. He drank Ketel One and was easy to talk to. He was still dancing, which was awesome to hear.
Another time, I got to hang out with Alan Cumming. This was not the first time either. I was background in a GLAAD commercial he was in, and we had a nice afternoon chatting on set. There was another time as well, here or somewhere else, I can’t remember. We actually had a mutual acquaintance that I continually forgot to mention. He was sweet, very aware of his surroundings, and a bit reserved, not quite guarded though. I got the same energy when I met Paul Reubens at a cast party after a performance of his Broadway run. They both seemed grateful for being treated as close to a regular person as possible.
This is also where I had another run in with the Weinsteins, this time Harvey. There were at least two occasions when he came in with a beautiful woman, ordered drinks and sat down, then a short time later instructed me to not clear the drinks and disappeared with the woman for around 45 minutes. (Remember, it was a hotel.) I think this was right before the allegations started, and it took me a while to realize what I had witnessed.
It felt like I was brought on as part of an effort to revitalize things there, but unfortunately, I think the damage had already been done. $100 million-dollar debt is what happens when you turn operational decisions over to a b level club kid turned marketer. Grand Life ended up keeping the hotel, but Tribeca Grand was no more. The Roxy was a nice refresh, and it seems to be doing well.
It’s sad. The location and renovations, the food and beverage program, the staff (Alex and Bri were awesome), everything was good actually, better than what people were led to believe after that review came out. The irony is that the real problem and ultimate demise of the Trail House was the name itself and the person who imprinted this manufactured identity on the place. This place would have been absolutely fine if it simply hadn’t been named, branded, and marketed as Montana’s Trail House, showcasing “Appalachian” food. The chef, the beverage director, and the handful of partners I knew were all good guys and deserved much better than getting lumped in and roasted. Maybe they should have known better and fought for changes before they even opened, who knows? I was hired to be a manager there but was never really allowed to manage. Everyone was micromanaged from afar using the camera system, something I immediately tried to address (Don’t do that to your staff. The cameras are there to protect the House, not spy on staff.) but was rebuffed and started being obsessively watched myself. It quickly became an impossible situation- how do you tell one of the owners that their wife is taking staff- and very, very obviously- getting coked up in the bathroom? How do you tell him he’s eating and drinking up his profits? Within months of opening, they started clamping down on costs, blaming staff, but couldn’t seem to check their own behavior of running up large tabs. This place should have worked. I don’t know exactly what happened, but at some point, the rest of ownership got wise to the underlying problem…but not before the damage had been done. A clunky rebrand couldn’t space the space- though they did remove the stationary stools at the bar, which was the right move. Good people lost money. I had been working as a real estate agent at nearby Nooklyn for a while (in another life change) but leaving this one was hard. This might’ve been my last f&b gig before moving out of the city, which makes the whole thing sadder to me.
Tutu’s was loved by the neighborhood, but it was weird, and poorly run. Upstairs was a straightforward, Brooklyn brasserie. The doors opening out onto the street and side patio were awesome during the warm months. Boardgames always seem like a good idea at a bar, but rarely turn out that way. Downstairs was supposed to be a Bushwick mini night club for nerds, with larping/drinking events and dancing, and that sounds like a good idea. But I don’t think anything they did actually made that much money. I ended up with Todd and Yaz as friends before moving on, so all in all, it was a good time.
Anella was a nice gig for a while, though it was clear I was coming into a situation where the staff had already grown very close, and I was replacing someone they liked. I got along with the rest of the floor staff just fine but was never accepted into their circle.
I was brought on to revamp the beverage program and compliment the new chef’s menu. Not much of a mention of the beverage program in the review, but hey, a NYT star ain’t nothing. One of my cocktails, the Green Street, remained on the menu for years after I left.
By the time Good Room opened, nightclubs with multiple levels or spaces was basically the standard, and I think it makes a lot of sense. I don’t know what this space was before, but it had been in the same hands for many years and was already basically laid out as a large ballroom or event space. The club was up a long flight of stairs. The room immediately opened up at the top of the stairs, with a large, three-sided bar and small lounge area nearby. That area spilled into a large dance area, with raised banquets surrounding it. It really felt like one of these old clubs from the 90s. The photo above is of the “Bad Room”, a smaller but not small room across from the main dance floor and bar. This was for non club standard dj sets, live music, etc. There was just an incredible amount of room in this club. Steve Lewis designed this one as well and did a phenomenal job.
Beloved was a nice little bar, and its cocktail program hit above its weight. But it just couldn’t find its place in the world. It was also only a bar, no hot kitchen, which made things extra difficult.
For whatever reason, this place brought together some of the best people I knew in the city. Just a fantastic staff, including Lauren who went on to lead the bar team at Dutch Kills, Fiacco, Vivek, and Rita, who went on to open The Greenpoint Palace.
This was another project that Steve tapped Katie and me to work on. We had nothing to do with the giant penis sculpture.
Yes, another Steve Lewis Design project that Katie and I worked on. I understand how space should be laid out, how it should function and how it should feel all very well, those are my skills. And I’m pretty handy when it comes time to build things, but in case it wasn’t clear, Katie is the brilliant designer, not me. She worked with Steve, advising on the lay out the counter tops, and then measured, cut, and fit in all the copper. I was the extra set of hands and when needed, swung the hammer.
Thee Brian O 