Back to the good old (clubbing) days.
It’s 2:30 a.m. outside Artichoke Basille’s Pizza on 10th Avenue. A line of drunken, hungry customers spills out onto the sidewalk. The smell of cigarettes and cheese permeates the air as ravenous millennials, fresh off a nearby nightclub’s dance floor, wait impatiently for an oversized slice before stumbling home after a memorable night out.
This grimy little ritual once defined an era of New York City nightlife.
However, over the past decade, nightclub culture died down, especially after COVID-19, and more exclusive members’ clubs like Zero Bond, Casa Cipriani and Fly Fish Club began popping up all over the Big Apple — with impossible-to-snag reservations, exorbitantly high annual membership dues, muted lighting, and annoyingly strict dress codes.
The private club boom of the late 2020s, which only those in a certain tax bracket could afford to be a member of, left many 30 to 40-something-year-old New Yorkers scratching their heads, wondering what happened to the electric era of NYC clubbing.
But those prayers might soon be answered.
Earlier this month, when Avenue, an iconic club from Tao Group Hospitality, announced its reopening on Instagram, the reaction was charged with collective nostalgia.
“It was never a goodbye,” the post’s caption read, sparking hundreds of comments from millennials itching to relive the glory days.
“This place was a movieeee,” one former Avenue clubber recalled.
“2026 is rlly the new 2016!!!!!,” one user wrote.
“Will Wass be at the door? Artichoke pizza upon exit? Absolute essentials,” said another.
Others called it a “cultural reset” and praised New York for “healing,” while entrepreneur Cindy Ramirez wrote, “I fear nightlife might be making a comeback. Thank God.”
The club, which closed its doors in 2020 and was a former hotspot for celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and Justin Timberlake, attempted to salvage its old location, but the landlord had sold the building, according to Eater.
Now in partnership with Hudson Yards, Avenue will reopen in June as Avenue Sky Lounge, a 6,000 square-foot venue on the 101st floor of 30 Hudson Yards.
“Avenue first came of age during a defining era of nightlife,” Noah Tepperberg, co-CEO of Tao Group, told The Post. “You had to get past a rope to know what was going on inside since it was part of the pre-social media nightlife world when you could not just see everything happening,” he said.
With the revived Avenue Sky Lounge, the nightlife wizard and team are looking to revive the early 2000s club era with a more refined, sophisticated edge, hopefully mirroring its original clientele.
“We are going to focus on the importance of installing this element of organic and unexpected experiences while staying true to the intimacy and energy people remember,” Tepperberg added.
The proliferation of private members’ clubs that has dominated the city’s ever-changing social ecosystem has created a nightlife culture where access and exclusivity outweigh the communal energy that once defined city nightlife, and might be plateauing.
“Lately we have seen a rebirth of nostalgic venues, particularly from times when going out felt more spontaneous and centered around music and energy,” said Tepperberg.
“Members clubs and intimate spaces continue to serve an important purpose and are creating a whole new scene for the people who like the more filtered environments they provide,” he added. “But we also believe people are craving nights that feel democratic.”
Jean’s on Lafayette, a venue designed for farm-to-table dining upstairs and debauchery downstairs, has consistently drawn a crowd of young, eager New Yorkers. On any given night, the line for entry wraps around the block.
“We built this place to be a never-ending wedding,” a Jean’s team member who believes their space offers a vitality that members’ clubs simply cannot manufacture, told The Post.
“Everyone leaves the Temu country clubs to rub up on strangers with us,” the rep added. “Sometimes we flip the dinner into a party like we did with Jimmy Choo after a Patti Smith performance.”
Jamie Mulholland, owner of Ketchy Shuby over on Broome, another frequented dinner and dancing spot agrees that people are increasingly looking for a more soulful experience in nightlife.
This summer, Mulholland is hoping to revive some of that energy by reopening Ketchy Shuby in the former Lily Pond space — a Hamptons nightclub that helped define the same early-2000s party era now romanticized online.
“We really wanted to focus this year on the nightlife experience in the Hamptons to bring back that gritty, fun, exciting experience people used to have in the early and mid-2000s.”
But the revival may be about more than just nostalgia — it’s about preserving spaces for genuine human connection.
“The further we push into AI and social media, the more social distancing, this next generation will come to appreciate how precious face-to-face human-to-human interactions truly are,” said Jack Mulqueen, owner and operator of the Lower East Side hotspot, Outer Heaven. “In that respect, clubbing will remain eternal.”
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