• State tax agents shut down H&H on the UWS for three hours today over an outstanding tax bill, but it's now back in business. [NYT]
• Zoë in Soho has filed for bankruptcy protection. [Crain's]
• Sad: A roundup of recent closings around town. [Eater]
• Happy: A roundup of places opening in the Hamptons this weekend. [Curbed]
Britain's Guardian profiled Jared Kushner, and while the Observer owner makes some positive noises about his company, the salient facts are as follows: After two years and a purported 40 percent revenue increase, the paper is still losing about $2 million per year. Kushner said he is " definitely scared about newspapers" and compared the industry to "a falling knife." And despite having Ivanka Trump on his arm, Kushner was recently turned away from fading nightclub Bungalow 8:
♦ Convivio earned a three-star review in the Times today; chef Michael White, says Frank Bruni, "can do it all." [NYT]
♦ Armin Amiri's plans for Cafe Socialista? He says he's turning it into an "exclusive" 24-hour diner. [NYO]
♦ Jean-Georges Vongerichten's next project is a restaurant in the Mark Hotel. [Page 6]
♦ Amy Sacco just renovated Bungalow 8, but whether that's enough to bring back her A-list clientele is still up for debate. [NYO, GofaG]
♦ Chef Paul Liebrandt chats about his new restaurant, Corton, which he's opening with Drew Nieporent. [Metromix]
♦ Le Parker Meridian is opening a new bar called Knave. [NYT]
♦ JE Englebert, the publicity-seeking owner Prime and Suzie Wong, says he's starting a group called New Yorkers Against Bottle Service. [GS]
There was a time in New York City's history, back in the heady days of "a few years ago," when nightlife queen Amy Sacco's life was a worthy item of gossip. She was at the center of an entire universe of celebrities at their most glittering. Today, she's worth chronicling mostly as the living embodiment of the transience of nightlife fame. And a new profile of her in Page Six Magazine (by former Gawker-er Joshua David Stein) can be seen as a grand requiem for Sacco and her Bungalow 8-driven empire. Nothing lasts forever... Sacco's rise to fame is familiar by now. She's just a Jersey girl who came to New York City, worked in the restaurant business, and made some important friends who eventually bankrolled her first club, Lot 61. She hit her peak with the opening of Bungalow 8 in 2001, which succeeded in turning the once-barren area of West Chelsea into the club capital of New York-to the point of destroying the exclusivity and isolation of the neighborhood that helped attract the top models and A-list celebrities to Sacco's clubs in the first place. But Sacco's more recent history is one of unmistakable decline. She opened a Bungalow 8 in London, which received (and still receives) a tepid reception from the locals. Bette, the restaurant Sacco opened as a "neighborhood joint" near her own Chelsea apartment, closed without warning earlier this summer. She got a slew of nightlife and image consulting jobs that, while lucrative, aren't nearly as glamorous as her former life as an NYC tastemaker. And she says she's simply getting tired of it all:
Joshua David Stein brings us some breaking news in Page Six mag: Amy Sacco is no longer the queen of New York nightlife! No one goes to Bungalow 8 anymore; her restaurant, Bette, shuttered last month; and Sacco is now spending much of her time in London, where she dates a British chef and oversees a Bungalow offshoot (which, one of Stein's interviewees says, is less cool than the "club lounge at Heathrow Airport.") But it's even worse than that, according to Stein:
Amy Sacco, the former NYC nightlife queen whose reign on top is now (we believe) pretty much over, still has a bunch of fans at BlackBook magazine. In a new interview-one that describes Sacco in glowing terms that would have been more appropriate three years ago-she talks up her Bungalow 8 club in London. Sure, it had a rough start, and hasn't gotten the greatest reviews, but she points out that "we have a hundred more bathrooms than in New York, so, fabulous!" Ha, [cocaine joke]. But what do Sacco's customers in London have to say in their own reviews?
Is this the end of Amy Sacco? We're going to say it is. The onetime NYC nightlife queen's restaurant Bette in Chelsea—formerly considered a complement to her club Bungalow 8, a food-and-fun empire that would never be destroyed—is closed. No big to-do; just a lock on the door, and the end of an era. What happened?
Amy Sacco's launch of a branch club in London last year was taken as another perfectly-timed move by the designated "queen of New York nightlife" (Vanity Fair). The neighborhood of the Amazonian entrepreneur's original Bungalow 8, in the 20s of Manhattan, has been overtaken by cheesy megaclubs, and celebrities have defected to newer, less obviously wanky spots, like the Beatrice Inn. Escape to London, the world's hot megacity of 2007? Brilliant! Except the nightclub business is local; Sacco's London network is thin; the charismatic hostess is rarely there; London's suffering as much as New York from the credit crunch; and the British offshoot, at the St. Martins Lane Hotel, is dead, according to our London friends.
Today's Deepest Thought comes to us courtesy of bar-hound George Gurley, whose work in the Observer never fails to make us fantasize about moving to one of the Portlands, or an upstate ashram. This week, George asked the patrons of Bungalow 8 to opine about the Iraq war.
Has it come to this, people? Has it really gotten so inauspicious out there that the beautiful people must take to hurting one another? Apparently so. Reformed bachelor (ha, we love writing that) Fabian Basabe has filed suit against exclusive den of sin Bungalow 8 and its alpha-doorman Armin Amiri, claiming that Amiri clocked him when he tried to bring a group of friends past the pearly gates. Bungalow headmistress Amy Sacco denies any such incident took place, but that's not stopping Basabe, who says, "I'm not going to let them get away with it." And honestly, the $2 million Basabe's seeking barely covers the cost of his pain at never having a chance to call Amiri a "sand negro."
Rush & Molloy report today that male socialite and Advice Diva Fabian Basabe has committed the ultimate sin: complaining about Bungalow 8 doorman Armin Amiri. Basabe has told police that during an argument over how many friends he could bring in, Amiri punched him, resulting in a third-degree assault charge. Amy Sacco, Bungalow's grand dame, denies the charge, insisting Amiri would never hit a lady.
• While public sentiment believes that actress Sienna Miller is patching up her romance with cheating tramp Jude Law, Miller was seen getting "cozy" with Leonardo DiCaprio at Bungalow 8. And as we all know, the walls at B8 never lie. [Scoop]
• Donald Trump stops just short of calling his pregnant wife Melania Knauss a big-titted "monster" on Howard Stern. Like mama said, money can't buy class. [Page Six]
• Danny Bonaduce will pose nude for Vanity Fair — because magazines don't really want to, like, sell copies or anything. [Lowdown]
• Token white rapper Eminem is set to rewed Kim Mathers, the coke-loving mother of his child. We can't wait till they divorce and he writes some more heartfelt songs about locking her in a trunk and killing her. [R&M]
• Jay-Z is being sued by former pro-wrestler Diamond Dallas Page for stealing his gang sign. [Page Six]
• First twin Jenna Bush loses her wallet, complete with a shitload of cash, at Lower East Side hipster den Happy Endings. Apparently the innocent girl was merely fleeing someone's greasy advances. The poor thing just can't have a peaceful night hanging out by the venue's bathrooms, can she? [Page Six]
• Contrary to other reports (reprinted here, to boot), former HarperCollins PR director Paul Crichton did not leave under investigation for unauthorized spending. Like any good overlord, Judith Regan just prefers to smear him as such. [Lowdown (2nd item)]
• The assumedly faux TomKat wedding registry at Neiman Marcus just might be real. How painfully budget. [Scoop]
• Bungalow 8 gatekeeper Armin Ariri now has an acting career, presumably because some ugly producer just wanted to get past the velvet rope. [Page Six]
• Actress Heather Locklear and Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora may be headed for divorce, perhaps because Locklear refuses to try for another child in lieu of reviving her career. As if there were any hope after LAX. [R&M]
In the November issue of Glamour, Bungalow 8 madam Amy Sacco weighs in on the Dos and Don ts of Ruling the Night (the Dos and Don ts of Ruining Chelsea must be in the December issue):
