So much for watching soused Saturday Night Live cast members play Bon Jovi songs Saturday nights at "The Cutting Room," because Chris Noth is shutting his Flatiron district club.

Per a press release we received, the SNL afterparty venue closes January 13 with a performance by Joan Rivers.

There's just no room in New York anymore for the pet venues of wealthy celebrities! From the release:

The Cutting Room is closing due to an untenable rent increase, with the building's landlord demanding more than double the current rent. It is only the latest New York intimate performance venue to close; in recent years, venues from Fez to CBGB have shuttered due to the hostile real estate market.

So sad.

A 2004 Guardian profile gave a decent (if gushing) overview of the venue, which Noth opened in 1999 (as co-owner with Steve Walter) because "I'm really pretty bored with all the popular spots that make money." He certainly avoided too many of those headaches.

Not that the Cutting Room lacks popularity, at least among a certain crowd. Noth told the Guardian "The Saturday Night Live parties, we have them here" — and "they can get" decadent.

The tabloid clippings would appear to bear that out. They depict Will Forte and Jason Sudeikis jumping on stage and singing Bon Jovi; Demi Moore introducing Seth Meyers and Andy Samberg's Aerosmith cover; and a version of "Shook Me All Night Long" with Dan Aykroyd on vocals and Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz on guitar.

According to one Chicago Sun-Times gossip item, Noth even culled one of his girlfriends from the ranks of the Cutting Room, where the woman worked as a bartender (Noth was soon finding her acting and modeling gigs, the item claimed).

Noth is going to try and reopen "later this year," according to the press release. Uh, well, there are only three days left. But real estate types in New York are pretty desperate right now, so you never know. Thank God for the down economy.