I thoroughly enjoy admitting when I’m wrong. Maybe because it happens so often. Everyone ready to time travel? Good. Let’s go way back to October of last year, when I had this to say about the swanky, closet-size, SoHo lounge Goldbar:

In broad terms, Goldbar pisses me off. The door’s extremely tight and the place is never packed. They’re super snoody and won’t let patrons take pictures inside, and no, I don’t think this is to protect the artwork (I really doubt they’re hanging paintings that valuable in place where people come to get shitfaced and often climb/fall into the walls).

Hmm. Several months later, I opted for a softer tone:

After not loving Gold Bar my first few encounters, I actually had a positive experience there this weekend. This might have had something to do with the fact it was our last stop of the evening (we arrived at 3:30 AM) and everyone had easily drunk a bottle of vodka a head since we left the house.

Not really a ringing endorsement but okay.

The ‘gold skull closet’ as I fondly call it was actually FULL (I guess that’s what happens when you go out on Saturday instead of Monday night), the music was FUN (Billy Joel? Yes, please!) and the bathrooms, which I used for the first time, were clean and spacious enough for me to stretch out and change my clothes (don’t ask why I was changing clothes).

As if we weren’t retard enough, my girlfriend ordered me a specialty alcoholic concoction called the Gold Rush. It tasted like a Long Island Iced Tea on crack. When I inquired about its ingredients, I received a slurred response that it was whisky, bourbon, and honey, all made ‘bearable’ by a giant ice cube in the middle. I took two sips and wisely professed to my friend,

“This is throw up. This is throw up.”

I think what I was trying to express is that the drink was both vomit inducing while also tasting like liquid sour patch kids gone bad. It’s a miracle no one projectile puked that night.

Months later again, I’m here to come full circle and give Goldbar two tequila happy thumbs up. I found myself hanging out there both this past weekend and the one before. I’m here to say, on the record, that this place is a good time.

I partied there on a Sunday night and found what I judged to be the sexiest crowd out that night in the city. The flocks of female supermodels seemed relaxed instead of rigid. Men weren’t busy boasting bottle service to impress, they were actually pulling out cute dance moves and managing to look like homo-sapiens genuinely enjoying themselves instead of bankers desperate to prove that they know how to party.

Since Goldbar shimmers with a lounge-y feel, that hard-core club vibe that often makes intimacy, listening or thinking impossible, isn’t there. You are therefore more prone to talk to some one instead of just making vulgar “I’m checking you out” insinuations with your eyes across a crowded dance floor.

I’ve been getting excited since someone in the rumor mill has been churning out news that the owners of Goldbar and Cain would be opening “Cain Downtown” here in the SoHo area. Naturally, I was thrilled about the birth of another downtown club I could attend, get wrecked in, and walk home from. It only took me an entire year to warm up to Goldbar! Now that the skull closet and I are friends, I had high hopes for my relationship with Jamie and Jayma’s next downtown venture.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem like this is going to materialize. Apparently, the locals are hell-bent against Cain becoming their new neighbor. And frankly who can blame them? I wouldn’t want an establishment that was known for go-go dancers in zebra bikinis and for pushing people too drunk to see straight onto the street at four AM as my neighbor either.

Tragic story for all of us who were hoping to save cab fare to Chelsea by hanging out downtown.

Miss Model Behavior’s the new nightlife writer for theBlaqlist.com. Feel free to post any nightlife comments or questions on our forum or contact her at MissModelBehavior@theBlaqlist.com

If your New York relationship was good (and by good I mean was able to last longer than the customary three months), it can be exceedingly difficult to let go of. City breakups are rough, and if you partied together, splitting up can also lead to a lot of awkward encounters and hardcore game playing.

So here’s my question: If you have clout at a nightlife establishment i.e. you know the doorman, the owner, the investor who mattered or the security dude, is it socially or morally acceptable to have your ex-significant other banned from the place? Setting up an infrastructure with the powers of the locale so that when your ex walks up to the red rope they’re automatically turned away? A nightlife blacklisting of sorts?

I think the answer to this question is more complicated than it seems. On the one hand, this is spiteful, childish, and clearly illustrates that you still like the person and haven’t moved on. On the other hand, aren’t all relationships, at their fundamental level, a power struggle? And what better way to showcase your power than by excommunicating the former object of your affection from a place that you used to both go to together? And with New York being as large as it is, is it really so much to ask that they party somewhere else?

Just like a messy custody battle, it’s not that easy to divvy up your spots versus my spots. What are former couples supposed to do? Create some sort of calendar that clarifies you can go to Goldbar every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and he can have full reign of 1 Oak on Saturdays? When there is no tacit agreement, and your request for personal space at Cain is disregarded (meaning your ex shows up and flaunts their new diet and girlfriend in your face) is it okay to use your connections to make sure the club’s staff keeps them out?

Anyone who’s ever had a disastrous clubbing event with an ex, cast your vote here.

Wednesday night Upstairs, the exclusive SoHo club and location of much debauchery like dollar bill tossing, was raided by the cops.

Old news.

The charges had something to do with liquor license violations and a legal problem with the sound system. All I focused on was trying to hide my inherent panic: Where would I go to hear Hip Hop and Bruce Springsteen in the same night? Where would men go to meet models age sixteen and under? Where would Leonardo Di Caprio go to schmooze low key with his entourage?

Luckily, this terrifying series of questions didn’t continue for long. A mere thirty-six hours after the raid, I received a text from one of the owners at Upstairs assuring me it was re-opened and ready for Friday night. That was fast! It wasn’t until I was in the club this weekend that I realized why: The bar was closed.

But don’t think Upstairs was going to let a pesky little thing like a liquor license get in the way of their bash or business plan. They’re just serving bottle service only until further notice – and the creepy part is that is took me twenty minutes to even notice that the bar looked like an abandoned warehouse: a blank wall, utterly void of life, liquor or bar tenders.

Talk about a loophole in the system!

“No, you cannot purchase a vodka on the rocks; I can only sell you the entire bottle.”

Interesting.

I found this similar to how Milan recently enacted laws that prohibit liquor from being sold after 2 AM instead of after 4 AM in order to help prevent drunk driving. Now bartenders scream, “Two AM last call! Everyone get your bottles!” and people stock up on Magnums or just purchase bottles of champagne which they walk around downing as if it were JuicyJuice.

Yes, this is really going to encourage people to drink less.

Ah, Cain.

This is one of those nightlife establishments my heart goes out to. It’s like that really popular kid in high school who had the world at his finger tips, but ultimately ended up staying in his home town, teaching local soccer, and living in his mother’s basement.

This isn’t exactly a negative: Who doesn’t like the comforts of their childhood home’s basement?

The point is that years ago, Cain opened as the hottest thing on the block. I remember it being notoriously hard to get into. I used to quake in my heels at the door thinking about how threatening long-haired euros wielding clipboards looked. And everyone was wowed by their animal head and safari theme.

This was long before Goldbar’s impressive skulls and 1Oak’s ridiculously expensive engraved walls entered the picture, upping club’s decorating requirements significantly. Cain was hot. They had girls in zebra bikinis convulsing on white sides of the club that resembled caravan sheaths, they had drummers in abundance, they had struck an exquisite balance in music that managed to be tribal yet commercial. And who didn’t like their sexy, high ceilinged individual bathrooms? The club reminded me of Pangaea in London, and for that reason alone, I doted on it.

Around the same time, spots like Guest House and Home sprouted up. Twenty seventh street experienced a glorious run, then that dude fell down the elevator shaft of Bed, and the underage girl at Guest House was found chopped up in a dumpster. Consequently, establishments started carding and the street lost some of its shine. Soon it was clear Cain’s owners favored their sparkly, lounge-like younger child Goldbar, and Cain began to feel like an after-thought. The neglected older sibling.

That doesn’t mean there still isn’t fun to be had at Cain. I did a swing through last weekend, and while much has changed (the drummer’s now stationary, the music’s more hip hop, the door’s less daunting) I found the vibe enjoyable and fun.

Why?

Because the club’s lost its pretentiousness. It’s been dethroned. And the benefit of no longer being the coolest kid on the block is that your staff can lose some of the attitude and everyone can stop taking themselves so seriously. The atmosphere becomes laid back, dare I say – relaxing. Yes many of us are masochists who want to go out to be treated like shit only to savor the victory of knowing you achieved entrance into the hottest new place. But I don’t think anyone could categorize Cain’s transformation into kinder, more approachable creature as a ‘bad’ thing. And another animal is entering the Goldbar-Cain family. Cain Downtown in the SoHo area is officially in development. So those of you that enjoy lines, celebrity sightings and doorman abuse should be prepared to shimmy over there.

Miss Model Behavior’s the new nightlife writer for theBlaqlist.com. Feel free to post any nightlife comments or questions on our forum or contact her at MissModelBehavior@theBlaqlist.com

Just when you’re trying to enjoy yourself at a space saucer like Mansion where the music’s intense, the disco lights are trauma-inducing and it takes twenty minutes to scale the six staircases to the bathroom, the club fades to black and a girl with butterflies in her cascading hair starts busting out some opera. Because isn’t this why we all go to clubs? To hear whacky versions of Verdi?

I’m confused.

I’ve known Mansion is into doing shows: Last time, I witnessed some electronic string quartet jam along with the DJ. Naturally, everyone remained bewildered about whether to continue dancing or to give the string instruments their full attention while sitting attentively feigning an interest in art. This is what I don’t get. Mansion is as clubby as a club gets. No amount of luxury renovation can kill the Crobar spirit that permanently haunts this space. Why the bouts of Lincoln Center?

Are they trying to pull a theater thing like The Box?

Are they trying to culture the club experience?

Do they consider such spectacles a selling point?

How much is this costing them on top of their frightening rent?

I’m thirsty for theater as much as the next overworked New Yorker, but is when I’m chilling with my fifth cocktail really the time I want it chucked in my face?

Next time at Mansion, I’ll consider packing both earplugs and opera glasses.

Miss Model Behavior’s the new nightlife writer for theBlaqlist.com. Feel free to post any nightlife comments or questions on our forum or contact her at MissModelBehavior@theBlaqlist.com

The downside of dating someone you go out and have fun with is that you’ll eventually have to see them drunk, at night clubs, post break-up. You’d think that because New York is ginormous, the chances of running into your ex would be slim. This could not be father from the truth. Most circles of friends frequent a rotating handful of places, the grown-up equivalent of the three neighborhood bars in college. Running into you’re ex isn’t a probability, it’s a certainty. And thanks to alcohol, all your emotions will be heightened and on edge. So ‘sadness’ becomes ‘SADNESS!’ and ‘I wasn’t that into him,’ becomes ‘We were building a LIFE together.’

So not only are you entering an inevitably awkward, emotionally uncomfortable situation, you’re doing it on dramatic steroids. How to handle such encounters? Let’s explore a few.

1. DBS (Devil Bitch Stare): Most women perfected this glare that resonates pure hate and loathing in middle school. Men might have to practice a half-hour in the mirror since cattiness doesn’t come as naturally. Stare with a seething that implies ‘if you contracted leprosy and your limbs fell off, I’d laugh,’ and you’ll know you’ve got the tone right. If you don’t want to have to interact with your former significant other while you’re out, DBS will do the trick. Give ‘em this gaze and they won’t come within a twenty foot radius.

2. Amnesia Effect: When your eyes meet awkwardly across the room, greet the ex with the blank stare of a head trauma victim. People get amnesia everyday! It could’ve happened to you! This immature solution also takes the ball out of your court. It’s now your ex’s job to figure out whether to approach you and ask what’s wrong or play along like you don’t know each other. Genius!

3. Jealousy Card: Grab the nearest homosapien (man, woman, waitress, security guard) and flirt with them like it’s the Special Olympics of speed dating. Gaze into their eyes, shimmy with them, dance with them, engage them in a sensual salsa. Your nerves about seeing your ex will be temporarily channeled into faux desire. He’ll roll his eyes so much he’ll risk cornea damage.

4. Payback: Greet him with an ‘accidental’ stiletto thrust into the foot or crotch. Give him a friendly shove from behind so his drink ends up on the girl he’s chatting up’s lap. Tell the security guard you saw him dealing drugs near the bathroom. All are equally effective on separate scales.

5. Spread Rumors: Engage in eye contact with the ex while chatting and whispering to someone else. The ex will sense you’re talking about him, and subsequently be curious, then enraged. When they confront you about why you’re acting ‘like a bitch’ you can deny you were ever talking about him OR fess up that you were just telling so-and-so about his Winnie the Pooh fetish. Revenge always makes your vodka tonic taste a little sweeter.

That about sums up the emotional immaturity I have to offer today. Of course there are kind and courteous ways to deal with bumping into an ex at a nightclub as well, but who wants to hear about those? This is New York. Relationship torture is our forte.

P.S. Just to keep up our theme of petty competition, anyone care to guess at which New York nightlife establishment the title photo was taken? The answer on Monday.

Miss Model Behavior’s the new nightlife writer for theBlaqlist.com. Feel free to post any nightlife comments or questions on our forum or contact her at MissModelBehavior@theBlaqlist.com

Miss Model Behavior’s the new nightlife writer for theBlaqlist.com. Feel free to post any nightlife comments or questions on our forum or contact her at MissModelBehavior@theBlaqlist.com

Upstairs on Broadway and Spring a.k.a. that secret clubhouse above Café Bari in SoHo, gave wasted downtowners, celebrities, and underage models a private space in which to party till dawn. Known as a ‘late night venue,’ they ran a super selective yet hassle free door (no lines!), and provide needed relief from Meatpacking and the 27th street strip. I’ve been an Upstairs frequenter and fan since its inception, and the fact that it’s become inevitably more commercial, especially on weekends, doesn’t detract from the fun.

There’s no snobby décor, so you actually can chill out. There are no cracked out cocktail waitresses teetering around in heels. The place just feels like someone’s ratty living room that you have the privilege of shaking your booty in all night long. It’s comfortable. And there are no door people screaming for you to “clear the sidewalk” or coat check girls abducting your jacket behind your back. And, the best part, as I wrote months ago in an article entitled Ode to Clubs With Food:

At around 3:30 A.M. Upstairs serves snacks. Mini hamburgers, pizzas, and the best freakin’ French fries with sauces that put McDonalds to shame. These snacks unquestionably save my life. Not only do they start soaking up the excess alcohol in my stomach making me feel more like a human being and less like a swirling ballerina in a perverse city version of the Nutcracker, but they’re delicious and Tapas-size so you never end up overeating … So this entry is my love ode, in incorrect poetic structure, to clubs with food. Because I don’t feel I ever fully appreciated this phenomenon.

My evil genius was onto something. Mere months later, Upstairs launched ‘Downstairs’ - not a bar or extension of the club, but a classic diner. In the ‘late night’ tradition of the venue, the diner’s open from 11 PM to 7 AM, so people who like to eat post-party will have someplace to go other than French Roast and L’Express. The quirk? Danny A., Matthew Isaacs and Jordan Harris decided to pay homage to New York nightlife by naming everything on the menu after Manhattan clubs and promoters, past and present.

The Marquee Mac “N” Cheese

Matt Assantwich (after promoter Matthew Assante): His food form translates into a chicken and mozzarella white wrap with a touch of chipotle mayo toasted to perfection

The Beatrice Pancakes: With poached pears marinated in red wine sauce with mascarpone cheese

Is anyone drooling yet?

I almost wish they didn’t keep vampire hours so I could enjoy the food sober. Almost everything comes with fries and the crowd favorite (which the doorman was eating in the middle of the street on my way out last night) seems to be the Mike St Pierre Steak Sandwich, which comes with sautéed onions and avocado.

Finally! A light at the end of the hangover tunnel!

Naturally, I remain insulted that I didn’t get a Model Behavior dipping sauce or onion ring named after me, but that’s okay. Despite my love of mini burgers, I guess it’s just not my time to be immortalized through diner food. Check it out and enjoy.

Miss Model Behavior’s the new nightlife writer for theBlaqlist.com. Feel free to post any nightlife comments or questions on our forum or contact her at MissModelBehavior@theBlaqlist.com

Party foul! Friday night hotspot club 1Oak’s elegant downstairs bathrooms flooded. Staffers tried to keep the mess under control as quickly as possible with wet vacs but for ladies who didn’t want their $500 shoes destroyed wading to the toilet, the one bathroom upstairs was the only source of relief. Since it was a rainy night, people weren’t leaving the club to party elsewhere, so the crowds continued to amass. And if the potty problem wasn’t big enough, later the cops and fire marshal showed up, noting the party was exaggeratedly over capacity.

The next day, I found myself outside 1Oak and saw a rowdy patron literally catapulted onto the sidewalk. He flew like a human cannon ball from one bouncer’s arms to another’s as he flailed wildly causing a ruckus and screaming something about his Amex card inside. Doorman Ben had to put his hands on the man’s shoulders and soothe his mad sputtering, “What’s your name, sir? Tell me your name, sir?” Soon the Wild One was calmed and breathing heavily like a post-tantrum child. Talk about people skills! That’s why door people in New York make a well-deserved fortune.

So despite a weekend of hullabaloo activity, yesterday’s Blackbook party at 1Oak went off without a hitch. The door was tranquil, the crowd was gorgeous, the bar was open – what more could anyone need? As we positioned ourselves on a banquet to people-watch, my friend Safari whispered, ‘this whole place feels like a London club tonight. Look at these girls! All Bohemian chic.’ And she was right. There were many vintage dresses, bangs, large bags, sunglasses and lots and lots of tights. The music jolted from Spice Girls to Madonna to 80ies classics to rock without anyone seeming to care. Spirits were bright and my only compliant is that they closed the open bar four minutes before schedule (yes, we were those cheap-ass people who were counting.)

My prediction is that after what I imagine is a fire marshal warning, 1Oak’s already Fort Knox doors are going to get even tighter. For anyone who can manage, this locale is absolutely worth checking out. Not only did they spend the equivalent of small nation’s treasury on decor, it has a swanky, fun vibe and dangerously comfortable banquettes. The black and white checkered floor lends an air of elegance; the expensive-looking wooden walls are engraved with romantic script. A fireplace crackles and luminous paintings of blank-faced children and horses span the inner room.

If Kiss & Fly and Goldbar gave birth to a very lavish hybrid space it would look something like this. Or in my words:

“If clubs could metamorphosize into men, I’d want to date 1Oak.”

Miss Model Behavior’s the new nightlife writer for theBlaqlist.com. Feel free to post any nightlife comments or questions on our forum or contact her at MissModelBehavior@theBlaqlist.com