New York City hospitality
BE SURE to drop off your shopping bags at home or hotel before journeying over to Employees Only (and you must), New York City’s newest and no-doubt here to stay bar and restaurant dedicated to—you guessed it—employees! To be specific begs the juicy story behind the name. Everyone knows that New York City is now the official no-smoking capital of the world, but, few know about the loophole that goes something like this: if every employee in a venue is also a smoker, then the venue is eligible to call the shot and light up. The Super Six behind Employees Only, all veterans of the nyc hospitality triumvirate Schiller’s, Balthazar, and Pravda, are also all smokers. Meet the clever boys that promise to give the bar and restaurant scene back to the ultra-cool, more often than not über-gorgeous workers (emerging models, actors, musicians, the creative types—the ones you want to meet when you go out) of New York City’s mega hospitality industry: Dusan Zaric, Akiva Elstein, Jason Kosmas, Billy Gilroy, Henry LaFargue, and Igor Hadzismiljovic.
   Opened just a few months ago, Employees Only at first glance looks like a turn of the twentieth-century blue-blood’s paradise, replete with a roaring fireplace, exquisitely appointed dark wood mouldings and old world-style service. A second thought conjures the fortune teller you just greeted sitting at a table in the wee antechamber cloaked in heavy red velvet drapes you just passed on your way in. You now know you’re in for the night and something quite original and superb—it is the only word that comes to mind! Open seven days a week from 6 P.M. to 4 A.M., Employees Only serves a full menu of mouth-watering gourmet comfort food at reasonable prices. No Mac-’n’-cheese or burgers here!
   Explains bartender-owner Akiva Elstein: ‘Hospitality workers are up late. They’re also naturally the best guests—they tip well and know what we’re dealing with first-hand. They deserve a place to go to unwind, where they can eat and drink really well and not break the bank.’
   Eating well means, for instance, the most delectable finger-food you’re likely to find on the island called the Serbian Charcuterie Platter—a beautiful assortment of flat bread (made on the premises), a variety of Spanish milk cheeses, lamb, pork and beef pâtés, and smoked and cold-cut meats from Serbia (US$15).
   Employees Only also boasts one of the only raw food bars in the city. You could come every night of the week just for the food, but you’ll stay bellied up to the massive wrap-around bar for the veritable alchemist’s laboratory of thirst-quenching originals such as the Bellini (freshly puréed white peaches stirred with Prosecco and dashes of Raspberry Cordial) and the Mata Hari (Courvoisier vs shaken with chai-Infused Vermouth and freshly squeezed pomegranate juice)!
   If you’re nursing a hangover, feel free to drop by the only bar in New York City that actually makes its own bitters. Cure the hang-dog and do the New Yorker thing and keep going, with an awe-inspiring infusion of house-made lavender gin and whatever your preferred mixer! But, of course, there’s no official smoking allowed.
   Check out www.employeesonlynyc.com for more details and the spring launch date of the greenhouse-style outdoor garden patio. Employees Only is located in Manhattan’s West Village, 510 Hudson at Christopher Street; telephone 1 212 242-3021.

New York City entertainment
NO ONE WE KNOW comes to New York City or lives here without an abiding, even obsessive, desire to see as much live music as humanly possible. In a city that’s played host to every genre of music and every household name band for ever, we highly recommend a preliminary visit to www.plusonemusic.net before trying to pop into one of New York’s c. 18,000 bars and restaurants, most of which have some form of live music.
   The management and public relations crew behind Ambulance LTD (touted NYC’s best new rock band by Time Out NY), the Hong Kong, Stellastarr, Inouk, the Occasion and many more local, hot-to-trot-cannot-possibly-miss-if-you-know-what’s-good-for-you bands, +1 Management & PR is the New York City independent music scene’s trade secret that you can’t be without.
   Launched just short of 18 months ago by Jonny Kapps and Nat Hayes, +1 Management & PR’s current mission is nothing less than a trans-Atlantic music-swapping extravaganza, NY2LON. Says Kapps on NY2LON, ‘With the landscape of labels, radio, magazines, web sites and blogs constantly changing, it is virtually impossible for music mavens to have an outlet that they can consistently rely on for the best new music. +1 and the Barfly (UK) have created NY2LON (New York to London) to bridge this gap across the Atlantic for both the us and uk music industries.’
   The inaugural NY2LON took place on March 17, 2005 at the annual South by Southwest Independent Music Festival in Austin, Texas. +1 Management & PR is located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For all the other details (all you bands with your eyes set on us play and distribution) go to www.plusonemusic.net. •

Employees Only at first glance looks like a turn of the twentieth-century blue-blood’s paradise, replete with a roaring fireplace, exquisitely appointed dark wood mouldings and old world-style service

MAIN PHOTOGRAPHS: Scenes from Employees Only. ABOVE: The +1 team.