Word got out on a bulletin board the other day that Employees Only was acquiring the old Marylou’s space on 21 West 9th Street near Sixth Avenue. EO bartender and co-owner Jason Kosmas tells us more: “It’s going to be much more of a restaurant than a bar. Think of the difference between Lucky Strike and Balthazar.”
The new place, which is still unnamed, will aim for a forties feeling — “pre–Rat Pack, very Humphrey Bogart. The kind of place that says, ‘steak, chops, seafood’ on the window.” The menu will likely be a little more complex than that; it’s possible Chanterelle veteran Keith Harry will take over the kitchen. In the meantime, Kosmos and partner Dushan Zaric have even invented the place’s signature cocktail, “The New Yorker,” a rye Collins with a float of red wine, “for that tanniny touch.” And what could be more New York than that?
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Dagny Mendelsohn of Employees Only Defends Her Customers From Flying Fruit
