Everyone is good at something. I, for instance, am very good at going for cocktails in the evening, having had tons of experience. That experience told me I wanted to among the first imbibers at the Empire Room, the cocktail lounge opened by Mark Grossich and his company, Hospitality Holdings, in March.
I first discovered Mark and his company when they opened Hudson Bar & Books in my Greenwich Village neighborhood 20 years ago. This was before the village was hip, and it was one of the nicest places to go for drinks, all dark woods and comfy seating. Plus I like books. I had a Christmas party there.
After successfully replicating the concept a few times (Beekman Bar & Books, Lexington Bar & Books), Mr. Grossich sold the company and went after bigger game. One of his first targets was the Campbell Apartment at Grand Central Terminal. I took a tour when he first got the lease. The location was amazing … but the place was a dump.
Nonetheless, I was hooked and immediately started booking the space for magazine and dot-com clients. We threw a party for In Style and Sante D’Orazio there when the place was only half done. “You were a real pain in the ass,” Mark helpfully reminded me when we spoke recently.
But the event, like all the ones I did there, was a success. First of all, we were hidden away in a New York landmark. It was convenient and mysterious at the same time. The place had history written all over it. Second, his simple but elegant decor captured exactly what you thought the place might have been like when John Campbell used it as his office (albeit with 60 other people, of course). It was like being on a holodek and telling the computer “Jazz Age New York City.” Brad Pitt is a customer there, and Martin Scorsese, who knows his Manhattan locations, just scouted the place for an upcoming film.
So that became the Hospitality Holdings trademark: chic and dramatic cocktail lounges in historically important locations. Now the company makes $20 million a year. There’s the Carnegie Club with weekly jazz sessions in the CitySpire Centre. Mark created a nifty rooftop lounge (great for parties this time of year, F.Y.I.) at the Library Hotel called Bookmarks, and followed up with a wine bar and bistro in the lobby called Madison & Vine, which won some sort of an award for their hamburger.
Hospitality Holdings is headquartered near the UN in the Trump World Tower, where Mark serves drinks to international traffic scofflaws and Apprentice-contestant wannabes. He’s impressed by his landlord there, The Donald. “You have no idea at how hard he works to keep up his celebrity. It’s exhausting just listening to him describe where he has to show up every day. He deserves to be famous.”
The new place is at the base of the Empire State Building, in case you hadn’t figured that out. It’s 3,500 square feet, both vast and intimate at the same time. The decor by Goodman Charlton is very posh—mohair upholstered furniture, macassar ebony and silver leaf-walls. Big honking chandeliers. But there are no pictures, yet so you’ll have to check and decide for yourselves.
It’s got nifty risers and sunken parts so it feels like six different places. It’s perfect for live music. Mark suggests it is the ideal spot for a New Year’s Eve party—guests can go up and look around, then come back for a drink and dance. I ask him how much to rent the place for a party. “We haven’t decided, but it will be a lot,” he promised.
Mark’s places aren’t cheap. At the Empire Room, he hopes to attract the tourist crowd, but the right tourist crowd. There’s a dress code. No children are allowed. He’s working with the building to come up with promotions so that when a couple gets engaged upstairs, they can pop in at the Empire Room for champers. Remember Sleepless in Seattle?
Like all his places, there’s a limited but serviceable menu. I only tasted the truffled popcorn the evening I met up with Mark. They were great—popcorn with a truffley smell—but I noticed Mark looking at the ground every time some fell so I’m not sure it will still be on the menu when you get there.
Mark doesn’t really drink, but he prides himself on making “bespoke” cocktails. Being gifted at drinking cocktails, as I mentioned, I tried two. I’d always been scared of egg crèmes, even though I know there’s no egg in them, but the Ramos Gin Fizz wasn’t goopy at all. But the homerun for this major leaguer was the Prohibition Punch, which contains Appleton Rum Estate, Gran Gala VSOP, passion fruit juice, and Moet & Chandon Champagne. It’s served in a fishtank-sized snifter—a deal for 15 bucks.
Settling in with my friend Punch, I thought I’d pick Mr. Grossich about the current scene of cocktails.
“What do you think of bottle service?”
“It’s an oxymoron. There’s no service. Somebody plunks down a bottle and a bunch of glasses then the guests make their own drinks … and you expect people to pay more for that.”
All of Mark’s places have the same staff formula. Men behind the bar, and attractive female servers in little black dresses (“Thank you, Nicole Miller,” he says) with pearls.
“What do you think will happen at Tavern on the Green?”
“They’ll never open,” he predicts. “Not til that labor deal gets thrown out.”
“Would you ever open in the Hamptons?”
“The season is just too short. You have to go for an intense burst of business. I don’t want to work that way. I’m low key. I walk to work.”
“How about that old space on top of the Chrysler Building, that used to be the Cloud Club?”
“Now you’re talking. But it’s a mess. They had a dentist’s office up there. It’s impossible. But I did take a domain name for the Internet. Just in case…”
As I scooted out of the restaurant, a tiny bit woozy, I thought, “I bet I hear about him again soon.”
