The best use of signage to set a venue’s mood has to be this gem at Greenwich Village’s Employees Only. Whether it legitimately hails from the New Orleans Police Department as it claims is TBD, yet its message is perhaps still relevant – well, at least the pickpocket part.

Employees Only was originally conceived as a late night speakeasy catering to others in the service industry. Today, it’s chef Julia Jaksic’s pricey restaurant with $14 cocktails and a tight door. An homage to the prohibition era of the 1920s and 30s, Employees Only feels unique, quite an achievement considering its traditional bar set up.

I came here stone sober so took the time to notice the liquor bottles perched high on the wall’s ledge and actually able to read over the complex cocktail menu instead ordering the first drink that popped into my head.

I selected the Pimm’s Cup (Pimm’s No1 served tall with a blend of Cointreau, Lime Juice and Ginger Soda, garnished with Cucumbers & Fresh Mint) although the Fraise Sauvage (Plymouth Gin shaken with Wild Strawberries & Tahitian Vanilla, topped off with Mumm Joyesse Demi-Sec Champagne) tempted me as well.

I find such complicated cocktails fascinating, as it would never occur to me personally to put so much care into what I drank, as opposed to ate. The crowd at Employees Only reflects this – the place seems to attract people who are detail oriented. When the bartenders are called ‘mixologists’ and dressed like chefs, perhaps I shouldn’t find this surprising.

Expect it to be crowded and getting a bartender’s attention to be perilous. With the drinks they’re mixing rivaling recipes for French soufflé, also don’t expect service to be speedy. Overall, I found people kept to themselves so this may be the place to drag an intriguing date or reunion of friends rather than a venue to make new acquaintances. If at any point you’re feeling low, or bored, check in for a session with Employees Only’s very own fortuneteller, always on duty and always wielding tarot cards.

I almost slipped into her chair prepared to shake her shoulders and insist that she tell me where my life is going. Since Employees Only is a refined place for downtowners who are hip and unpretentious, not out of their minds, I resisted and drowned out my life questioning with Pimms.

When I wrote about my first date with Marquee a few weeks ago, I failed to mention that I returned to the club the very next night. My pride only just got out of rehab.

This time, I was there for another event. I’ll be honest: I don’t even know what the specifics were–only that it had something to do with the empowerment of women in the workplace and that a friend of a friend hooked us up. The crucial detail of the night: for one hour, there was a vodka fueled open-bar.

We arrived promptly at 10:15 p.m. At 10: 30, the bouncer gave me a coy wink as he unhooked the velvet rope to let us in. Or was he reacting to the close proximity of a hair toss from the carefully straightened mane of a supermodel in front of me? Either way, the outcome made me feel a little special. I couldn’t help but feel the promise of this Friday night.

One hour’s worth of free drinks…and my friends and I intended to take advantage of the alcohol. We’d paid $25 to attend the event, so we had to drink more than our money’s worth in order to consider the evening worthwhile. Economically efficiency is always a first priority.

I’d worn a sparkling black and silver headband that everyone just loved. I could tell by the way that people smiled and pointed at me. Enthused, I decided to send a quick text to another friend about plans for later in the evening. It was Friday and I was ready for a late night. But as I opened my phone and attempted to type the text, the vodka reared its ugly head and sucker punched me in the face, sending me spinning. Oh, the spinning.

I didn’t feel buzzed. I didn’t feel drunk. I just felt ill. Horribly ill. And angry.

I recently finished college, a four year program designed to educate an individual about alcohol intake through hands-on experience. Such training should theoretically result in an expanded tolerance and a keen awareness of one’s limits.

But just when I think I’m all grown up and prepared for real life, my world spirals out of control. I tumbled out of Marquee, confused friends in tow. One loyal confidante reentered the club to retrieve my jacket, despite my pleas to, “Leave it! Leave it! It’s nothing to me now!”

As another friend and I waited outside, a guy tried to sell us Ecstasy. Apparently it was obvious to any Tom, Dick, or harried drug dealer that I was in need of a serious pick-me-up.

“I dthon’t dooo druugth!” I told him–the combination of drunk and cold induced a speech impediment best described as delightfully tacky, yet unrefined. It’s not often that one is filled with the essence of a Hooters bar, particularly not in front of Marquee. We needed to go. Immediately.

Just in the nick of time, my courageous friend emerged from the club with my coat in hand. We hailed a cab and were off!

…Until 2 blocks and half an avenue later when I suddenly felt like we’d kicked into Warp drive. As someone prone to motion sickness, particularly car sickness, this high-speed sensation is a personal nightmare of mine. At the red light I told my friends, “I gotta get out of here,” and gracelessly dumped myself onto the pavement.

After an avenue and three blocks on foot, my friends convinced me to get into another cab. This time, I rode in the front seat with my head hanging out the window like a dog.

The next day, after sending out a sad little batch of apologetic text messages, I solemnly vowed never to drink again. For one week. As someone who feels a bit of nostalgia for college, I guess it’s a comfort to know that the lessons continue beyond four years of formal instruction. In this case, I learned that, just as with Mexican food, sex, and grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s after 5:00 p.m., an open bar should be approached with enthusiasm, but also a bit of caution.

I was one of the last people to get on the Bijoux bandwagon as the club’s launch coincided with my temporary retreat from society. Too bad, because the place is a lot of fun. Several new locales have launched in the past months including RDV and Greenhouse, both of which I’ll be formulating written thoughts on soon, but neither of these places got me excited the way Bijoux did.

What’s cool here?

Well, it got me revved up enough to do a top ten list, so here we go:

1. It’s hidden! Nothing gets me more excited than hidden La Esquina-esque places. I think it has something to do with my childhood longing for a secret fort. If I have to traverse a kitchen, scale a secret stairwell, knock three times on an unmarked door, and creep through candlelight down a sketchy hallway, my happy going-out energy starts pumping — and you have to do all these things and more to get into Bijoux.

The club’s in Meatpacking in the basement bowels of Merkato 55. The entrance is a black door and after negotiating your way inside, you slither through a long hallway, down a staircase (making lefts and rights in sharp sequence), and down another long hallway to a seemingly-standard door at the end marked ‘Employees Only.’ In opening what appears to be an electrical closet or staff bathroom, you reveal a sprawling underground party lair.

2. A break from house music. I’m a house music fan, but between Kiss and Fly and Cielo it seems you can’t get away from it in the Meatpacking zone. Bijoux played hip hop intermixed with fun oldies.

3. It’s not too crowded. When you’re several levels underground, this is a good thing for claustrophobics and the rest of us.

4. It has a Wishing Well! Talk about my childhood fantasies continuing to be fulfilled. OK, maybe it’s just a well and not magic, but any club with fairy tale elements in it is cool in my book. I wonder if a late night patron has ever fallen in…

5. That red velvet color: in the curtains, in the lampshades and on the wall. There’s something about this color that I’m physically attracted too.

6. Display cases. Why not browse jewelry or really aged liquor on your night out? I thought this was an innovative decoration motif. I hadn’t seen it before and it gave the place a boutique-y feel.

7. No Go Go dancers! There’s nothing wrong with dancers per se, but I’ve always found they ‘trashy up’ an atmosphere making it less chill and well, sleazier. The ceiling at Bijoux is so low anyone that tried to Go Go on something would smack their head and fall down. Phew.

8. The very pretty, massive chandelier. I don’t know if this photo properly captures how large this thing is, but it’s bigger than me in the fetal position.

9. The sections of the wall that are leather and look like black snake skin. Creepy!

10. It was mentioned in Gossip Girl (IF you’re a fan :))

For people who want a side of club music with their dinner experience and can actually afford to pay for their meal instead of attending promoter charity dinners like the ones I’ve written about at One, Bagatelle is the place to be. It’s a meatpacking block away and while One and Bagatelle have nothing in common except for excruciatingly loud dinner music and being the brainchildren of club owners, I find myself comparing the two because they’re the kind of restaurants one frequents pre-going out.

Haters describe restaurant-hybrid-disco Bagatelle as ‘an overpriced, overcrowded clubhouse for Guidos and women with a lot of mileage.’

Fans describe it as ‘the best food and social scene in the city.’

Obviously, getting a reservation’s close to impossible and even if you do, an hour long wait while you suck down outrageously over-priced martinis in a body lock at the bar is mandatory. The best word to describe this restaurant: Crowded. The runner up word: Euro.

While one guy did sport a donkey rope, the rest of the crowd was the slicker, elegant Euro type who knew the brand name of the shoes they were wearing off the top of their head and kept colorful kerchiefs in their suit breast pocket. The ladies that accompanied them were decorated accordingly.

FYI Bagatelle is a great place to wear your most uncomfortable, super-high heels. It’s so crowded that you can use fellow patrons to keep your balance walking around and falling is an impossibility.

Once we finally sat down, a waiter that looked like he’d just completed the half-marathon greeted us with a broad smile while sweat / tears trickled down his face. At another point, when I flagged him to take our order he made it half way around our table before sprinting off again with only half our orders received. I was more concerned about that man’s cardiovascular health than the restaurant’s service in general so the waiter and I remained on good terms. That is until he told me my entrée of choice, the scallops, was no longer available. That left me with the veal. Boring. But the goat cheese and foie gras appetizers were great. Get them if you ever find yourself here.

Also, keep your eyes peeled for the most attractive Asian male waiter (or water boy?) who circulates the restaurant all night with ridiculously shiny, long hair and a sexy saunter under his aproned black pants. He’s somewhat mythical looking and my friends and I decided he should star in the next Lord of the Rings movie and probably received a frightening amount of attention (and cash?) nightly from older women.

Don’t come to Bagatelle if you really want to talk to anyone because the music level makes that impossible (they actually have a DJ by the door).

Do come if you want to be dancing to ‘My Dream is to Fly’ on your chair by dessert.

I was flabbergasted when Jamie Mulholland and Jayma Cardosa announced they were gutting and redecorating 27^th street nightclub Cain. Sure, 27^th street isn’t what it used to be, but from what I could see, safari-themed Cain wasn’t suffering. The music was always preppy, the promoters plentiful and the dance floor consistently full – maybe with tourists and out-of-towners – but it’s in Chelsea! That’s where hotel concierges tell these people to go.

I have fond memories of when Cain used to be one of the most exclusive clubs in the city. Their chic Italian door people would stare you down with what felt like daggered icicles shooting out of their eyes until you felt too insignificant to even try getting in. Cain’s always been a fun, familiar friend, even if no longer in its prime. I mean, Marquee’s not longer in its ‘prime’ and remains by far the most profitable nightclub in Manhattan. I didn’t think Cain’s owners would want to ‘mess with success,’ but someone got bitten with the rebranding bug and Cain Luxe was born.

Upon hearing this news last month, I started feeling bad for Cain. Had things plummeted to such a low that they needed to add an abbreviation of the world ‘luxury’ to their name just to make the point they were still classy? What was once a hot club now sounded like a child of divorce with a hyphenated surname. I decided I’d have to do a quick swing by and check the place out of myself.

The entrance is the same but the club’s entirely different. My jaw dropped upon arrival.

Why?

Because these were right in front of me:

Cain’s new décor revolves around a runway in what used to be the center dance floor. Go Go dancers shuffle around it in an awkward line like birthday candles strewn upon a cake. I felt like I’d entered Bada Bing and at any moment, I’d see Tony Soprano waving at me with his cigar from the bar.

What had happened to this place?

Technically speaking, they moved the DJ booth to the opposite side of the room (sure that cost a fortune) and hung red stringy thingies everywhere, which to me just accentuated the fact that this could be a brothel. Impressive elephant tusks support the ceiling and a beautiful mural’s on the back wall (if you manage to remove you eyes from the grinding women in front of you, you’ll appreciate it.) It’s sort of like Cave du Roy meets the jungle…which for me, didn’t really work. On this plus side, they clearly revamped their sound system and the quality is excellent. This place is definitely not the old Cain.

While I personally was not a fan, this venue could be wild fun for bachelor or bachelorette parties. Then again, maybe my whole perspective would be different if they had male dancers up on that stage.

The thing about Halloween landing on a Friday this year is that it gave people the excuse to make it a weekend long event. For some, face painting and sugar-highs started as early as Thursday.

I’ve written in the past about how I’m not a huge Halloween fan. I created a cop-out excuse last year about how ‘every night in New York is Halloween’ (it’s true, every night you can wear anything you want) and ‘going out is hard enough without specific wardrobe requirements.’ These excuses, while nicely crafted, are lame.

The truth: Horror movies make me cry. I get scared easily. I still have horrific memories of supposedly fun haunted houses terrifying me into months of insomnia as a child. I just don’t like dressing up. I really like things to pretty all the time. I’m anal about my skin and can’t imagine putting yucky face paint on it. I so hate being scared myself I can’t even fathom dressing up as something spooky and scaring others.

In short, I’m a Halloween loser. But this doesn’t mean I didn’t go out to do a full investigation of Halloween events taking place in the city all weekend long. I realize Halloween is over, we admired the costumes and hopefully ate a year’s worth of candy corn, but before everyone forgets about Halloween completely and refocuses 110% on their idle mind time on New Years, I wanted to put in my quick two cents on the club with the best Halloween decorations.

And my winner is…

MANSION!

Photo proof below:

That ghost hornet (ghost hornet?!) seriously looks like it’s airborne and about to impale us. I also like the ivy and autumn leaves they have going on here. It actually gives Mansion class.

This ivy and spiderwebs looks real! OK, just the ivy does. But I’m still impressed.

GAAAA! Again, excellent color palette. And the club lights in the background make the place look like an insane asylum.

These chains are HOT!

This is how I feel every morning when my alarm goes off:

Photos via Kilroy Cafe

Wow. Can this guy breathe? And we have a human calculator.

You can never go wrong with Teletubbies / Trolls…

I want to make this face of shock and disgust all the time when I go out. Inappropriate? Yes.

OK, she wins in the creativity category.

These two groups of friends mastered the art of Halloween coordination:

More fun Halloween photos available via facebook here