Apologies for being a little MIA over the past month- we’re long overdue for a blog post, and really have no excuse…except for the fact that we’ve been spending most of our time IN OUR SPACE without internet. That’s right- we finally signed our lease and got the keys to our space about a month ago!!!!
We first started looking at real estate in early December. We spent multiple days driving around all over downtown Manhattan, writing down phone numbers and contact information for every commercial space we saw. In mid December we began working with a broker and narrowed our focus to Western Soho and The Bowery; we felt these were the ideal neighborhood for us in terms of our aesthetic and where we thought we would find our customer. While the Bowery would make our search for brands extremely difficult with nearby competitors Blue & Cream, Eva and Oak, we also felt it was the most exciting, quickly developing neighborhood that we could hope for.
We saw a number of spaces along the Bowery, and spent time considering options in the Avalon Bowery, 2 Cooper, and 195 Bowery (which is south of the New Museum) before coming across 264 Bowery. We were unsure what to expect from the narrow storefront, buried beneath a barrage of restaurant supply equipment, but realized we had found something special from the moment we stepped inside.
Formerly Lenny Kravitz and Denzel Washington’s infamous bar, Kos, 264 Bowery is at first glance certainly not the ideal retail space. When opening a store you hope for a wide frontage, great natural light and windows on either side of your door, which is quite the opposite of the dark, hunter green den of (former) iniquity that we discovered upon walking into the space. Plus, Kos closed in 2004 and the space has been vacant ever since, leaving us with a layer of 7 years worth of dust.
But yet, the potential was unmistakable. And it seemed even more meant to be with the John Varvatos store in the old CBGB location only 2 blocks up on the Bowery. We automatically realized we could keep some of the nightclub elements, including the bar and a really cool DJ booth, to work within the existing framework to plan our store design. We also loved the fact that 264 Bowery boasts a storied history beyond Kos, in that famous New York photographer Berenice Abbott photographed the space in the 1930's when it was the Triboro Barber School.
The caveat? While we were ready to sign our lives away to get the space, other tenants had a lease out that was pending liquor license approval. We weren’t going to give up, though, and submitted a proposal to the landlord to express our interest in the space and ensure that we were the first people to have access to the space if the other lease fell through. Finally, about 2 weeks after the CB hearing, we found out the liquor license was denied, and we were able to begin negotiating our lease for the space.
We laughed. We cried. Emily screamed as the Justin Bieber movie in 3D was about to begin. There was champagne! After Bieber, obviously.
Needless to say, we were very excited. And after a VERY drawn out lease negotiation process, we are finally in our space. If you were to come by on any given day in the last month, there was a very good chance you would see us on our hands and knees, chipping away at paint on the floor, or tearing down hideous green print wallpaper, or perhaps screaming because we just discovered tortilla chips and a lime from 2004.
It’s been fun, and scary at times- seriously, the Kitty Box room SCARES us. But most of all, it’s made everything we’ve been doing over the past 6 months seem very real.
We had planned on doing a post about this a few weeks ago when it was David Letterman’s birthday. To celebrate Letterman and his 64th year of being funny (or not), Meredith prepared a top ten list, which we would still like to share:
The Top Ten Funniest Things about Taking over Lenny Kravitz's Old Bar:
10. Early 90s Club Decor (green, purple and orange? REALLY!?)
9. We now own 75 bottle services carafes. For all of our daily bottle service needs.
8. Cocktail waitress props!
7. This:
(We thought it was a breast pump, which was both funny and extraordinarily gross. Turns out it's a stomach pump, which is considerably less funny)
6. A ten year old drug den
5. That's all we got. Maybe this should have been a top 5 list.
Less Funny Things:
-Mold.
-Herpes Bathrooms.
-This 7 Year Old Lime:
-Scary, potentially scatalogical stains:
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