He says the setting of the Standard is exactly what is going to make No Bar effective. “The Standard is a beautiful place, and we can lean into that,” she says.
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And she doesn’t think there is anything wrong with bringing this DIY scene to a fancy bar. “Some places are only in it for the money, with the high-end food and drinks.”īut, as Dimayuga points out, she has spent plenty of time partying with and creating spaces for the very people she wants to patronize her bar. “A lot of clubs do gay nights because that’s where the money is,” she says. And the Dalloway, a high-end vanity project on the Lower East Side opened by Kim Stolz of America's Next Top Model and Amanda Leigh Dunn of the reality show The Real L Word, closed within a year.īrenda Walsh, the owner of East Village gay bar Phoenix Bar, which just celebrated its twentieth anniversary, said she fears that a bar in a place like the Standard would lack the community feel of more casual, legacy spots like hers, focusing on profits more than on the people it serves. Corporate brands have frequently been called out for attempts at “inclusivity”-like stamping your cupcakes with rainbows, like Sweets by Chloe did last year during Pride month. And it raises the question of whether Dimayuga can recreate a scene that's thrived in outer boroughs and pop-up spaces into a national hotel chain (albeit a very cool one). She says the name “No Bar” is a reference to “No Holds Barred,” as in, “there are no rules here.” That said, it’s a hotel bar adjacent to an upscale restaurant in a gentrified neighborhood in New York, so perhaps the “no rules” part is more of a vibe than a reality.
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There will be no cover for events, Dimayuga says, and she plans to partner with the Lower East Side Girls Club and Performance Space, a non-profit exhibition space. The décor is best described as “high-low”: cow prints mixed with silk, “buy 10 cocktails, get one free” cards, and rolling papers instead of branded matchbooks. “When she presented the idea, it clicked as a natural progression of our culture of openness and inclusivity.a way to connect with not just the LGBTQ community, but the downtown social community at large.”Īt No Bar, there will be rotating DJs, accessibly priced food like oysters and schmaltz popcorn, and cheekily named cocktails like the Feel the Beet, with vodka, lillet, beet shrub, and lemon (plus an optional five-dollar CBD boost). “I brought Angela on board because I respect her vision and abilities,” says Amar Lalvani, CEO of Standard Hotels. “But to have a fixed place where you can experience what folks experience in these smaller parties,” but in a more expansive setting, “is exciting to me.”
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“There’s an opportunity to go to a party maybe once a month,” she says. When Dimayuga took on her role at the Standard in 2018, she noticed that the hotel had plenty of great restaurants, but there were no venues focused around “the programming and the people that make up the space.” She realized she could essentially recreate Gush in one of the most recognizable hotels in the city. (The characters are primarily white and upper-class.) Other places she found were male-centered, not diverse enough, or simply too far away from where she lived. “I think people refer to The L Word a lot, but The L Word isn’t really my scene or my people,” she says. When Dimayuga moved to New York in 2006, she felt alienated by the lesbian bars she encountered.