Taking a Tour of VNYL, the Massive Four-Floor Club for Professionals to Live the 1970s Dream

EAST VILLAGE, NY — The grand opening of a massive, four-floor venue called VNYL is coming in early September to the East Village, and it will greet us with a record shop, coffee shop and several different types of nightclubs and bar settings. The kicker is that every floor is an homage to the 1970s, but in its own way.

Construction is underway inside and outside the building at 100 Third Avenue between 12th and 13th streets. In a matter of weeks, the exterior of the building will appear entirely black and lined to emulate the aesthetic of a vinyl record, said the bar's owner, James Morrissey, an Irish nightlife vet and owner of The Late Late bar on East Houston.

The aesthetic Morrissey is going for is a living room in the 1970s, with low, round tables and plush velvet couches. The walls will be lined with fabric with which to take better selfies, because apparently fabric photographs better than paint, Morrissey said. Every piece of furniture and interior design element has been custom made for the bar itself, down to the matching brass nobs and scalloped wood detail.

VNYL is looking to appeal to a 28-45 crowd of professionals, "a customer who has an attention to detail," Morrissey told Patch. "So they can appreciate the amount of effort we've put into this space. We've spent a lot of time thinking about every corner of the space, a lot of sleepless nights over the past few months."

The venue's entrance will lead into a café and record shop with a two-floor ceiling, where the music selection will be rotated every season. The playlists in all rooms are being curated by Rob Ackroyd, guitarist in Florence and the Machine.

Farther inside the bar is the restaurant's main room and restaurant, where the interior is dark and rich in tone. Morrissey describes this area as one in which large parties will eat, celebrate, and pay $400 to $2,500 for a professional mixologist to serve them high-quality cocktails at their table.

"We wanted to create a space which felt more like a home than an actual bar," Morrissey said.

On the second floor, there's a mezzanine that looks out onto the main bar with tables that can order professional mixology service. Then another floor up, there's the "Black Rose Room," where the atmosphere will be more like a club, with black-marbled counters and deep green furniture. An entire wall in the "Black Rose Room" is about to be lined with caricature portraits of relatively famous modern Irish stars, an homage to Morrissey's Irish pride.

"I paused a scene in a documentary that took place in the 70's, showed the couch in the scene to our furniture producers, and they made an exact replica," Morrissey said.

To the east of the "Black Rose Room" is the "Champagne Garden," a room that is indoors but is supposed to appear fully outdoors as its walls and ceilings are completely lined with light wooden panels. The "Champagne Garden" boasts furniture that is light pink and adorned with leafy patterns, and a white hammock hangs from the ceiling accompanied by a golden sign that says "VNYL."

The Lion's Den is the name of the basement bar, which will house a selection of craft brews geared toward locals in the East Village. TVs in the Lion's Den will be playing sports.

The space at 100 Third Avenue is wide with very high ceilings, something likely left over from the building's theater past. The building was a movie theater that showed gay adult films from the 1960s to the 1980s. It was shut down in 1989 by city officials who said it was "essentially operating an AIDS breeding ground with profit being the driving force," Dr. Stephen C. Joseph, the New York City Health Commissioner," told The New York Times. Construction on the building in 2012 added an addition to the top and transformed it into a modern condo building that greatly contrasted with the brick exteriors on both its sides.

VNYL's cocktail menu was built by Beverage Director Gareth Howells, who specializes in milk punches. An example milk punch on the menu will be called 1862, and it will include Copper & Kings American Brandy, Hennessy VS, Batavia Arrack, pineapple, lemon, clove, coriander, cinnamon, green & ceylon tea, and demerara. Most of the cocktails will be reinvented modern versions of '70s classics.

Celebrity chef Jordan Andino has created a California-inspired food menu, which includes candied bacon quinoa sushi with avocado crème and a black rice and salmon poke bowl.

Morrissey said VNYL will have a smattering of subtle Irish aesthetic accents, but you'd never notice them unless you pay close attention to detail. He said he wants people to notice the high quality of everything first, and then notice the Irishness of it all.

"I want people to be shocked at the level of sophistication that can come out of Ireland," Morrissey said. "That's something that makes it all worthwhile for me."

Photos courtesy of VNYL