We got late word yesterday that Andrew W.K.’s club Santa’s Party House a.k.a. 100 Lafayette a.k.a. (and ultimately named) Santos’ Party House was soft-opening with a party featuring D.J.'s Lee Douglas, Alex from Tokyo, and Spun. We won’t share whatever video footage we may have taken because as you can see here, absolutely no photography is allowed, but know this: Though the downstairs isn’t quite as spacious as we had imagined it after three years of construction (décor equals disco balls), it’s a long overdue throwback to the days of bare-bones box clubs (think Shelter at Hubert Street), and a godsend for anyone who has ever danced in the basement of 205 thinking the experience could benefit from a little more space and a much sicker sound system. Drinks at the basic bar were $8. D.J.'s casing the joint last night included Prince Language, Tommie Sunshine, and A Touch of Class— expect the nightly lineup to follow suit. The upstairs, according to A.W.K. himself, is opening soon — till then it’s time to shut up and dance.

Santos' Party House, 100 Lafayette St., nr. Walker St.; santospartyhouse.com

The Hotel Peninsula’s rooftop was always a mixed bag — its beautiful views were tempered by décor that made you want to don a cap with a fuzzy ball and drive golf balls off the 23rd floor. This week, that’ll change, when the Pen-Top becomes (drumroll…) Salon de Ning. Hong Kong–based designer Henry Leung was inspired partly by the jet-setting socialite Madame Ning (no relation to Suzie Wong) and partly by Shanghai shikumen. When doors open, at 4 p.m. on Friday, there will be Venetian mirrors, Chinese screens, Moroccan lanterns, and — of course — daybeds. Cocktails at the Pen-Top were pricey, and we have no reason to believe you’ll pay any less for a Nin Sing, featuring orange vodka and litchi and passion fruit juices. Photos coming as soon as we can get into the elevator.

Feast your eyes on Highbar — when it opens, during the third week of May, it’ll be competing with recently opened Pooldeck for the city’s rooftop revelers. As you’ve known since last year, this is the new one from Greg Brier of Aspen, D’Or, and Amalia. The food program has been scaled down since Ivy Stark was slated to barbecue — now you’ll find what’s being described as simply backyard-grill food such as hot dogs and hamburgers, as well as crudités — and the emphasis is on drinks such as the Wicket, a simple mix of gin and cucumber purée. A floor below the rooftop that you see here (that bizarre orb is a UFO chair designed by Asobi — ICrave did the rest of the place), there will be a loftlike room with floor-to-ceiling windows and banquettes and another full bar. One thing: There’s no pool. But who’s to say you can’t BYO inflatable one?

Studio B’s rooftop was getting complaints from the neighbors even before it opened, but it was up and running this Friday when Brazilian Girls performed, and according to a rep, it’ll be fully operational every time there’s an event at the space (barbecues and outdoor film screenings are also being considered).

Ahead of its grand opening tomorrow, we stopped into the Habitat, a little nook in Greenpoint that pretty much resembles the interior of a Big Buck Hunter lodge. The bar was built from scratch (witness construction shots on its Website) using wood from Maine and from Williamsburg's own Moon River Chattle. The conversation piece: a German cuckoo clock! The happy hour, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., features a $9 sangria-and-empanada special (beef or Cuban), $4 macaroni and cheese, and a two-for-one on select beers (among the dozen drafts, normally $6, are Coney Island Lager, Captain Lawrence Liquid Gold, Reissdorf Kolsch, and Mother’s Milk Stout).

Ten Bells, a nautical term, happens to be the name of the pub in London where Jack the Ripper met his victims. It’s a morbid moniker for an all-natural, organic wine bar, but that’s exactly what Yassine Bencaleb, owner of Le Pere Pinard, and Fabrice Vautrin, his partner there and also an owner of Les Enfants Terribles, have named their new Chinatown Lower East Side venture, which opened last Tuesday.

The East Village Yacht Club told us they vacated their space because their rent doubled to $26,000, but we’re glad to see it won’t be used for a Ralph Lauren store. Over the weekend Arlo and Esme opened shop there, serving coffee roasted by hand in small batches by Kobricks, a Hoboken favorite. In addition to employing a manual espresso machine, Arlo and Esme is serving four varieties of French-pressed coffees, and starting this weekend, high-end espresso cocktails will enter the mix.

Think Coffee, a Mercer Street favorite among NYU students, is the newest place to plant itself on the Bowery. The coffee, a special blend from Porto Rico Importing Co., is organic and fair trade, and though the espresso is served in smaller portions than at Starbucks, head barista Andrew Cotorceanu assures us it makes for a better espresso-to-milk ratio. Our recommendation: the sweet, thick Spanish variety made with condensed milk and sugar.

Last week we brought news that the East Village Yacht Club had successfully relocated from 1st Street to (where else?) the Bowery, where Antik, Bowery Electric, Vox Pop, and the new Mannahatta have also sprung up recently. Now we can bring you interior shots of the soon-to-open bar, which is so brand-spanking-new that Kelley & Ping’s sign hasn’t even been taken off the façade. As you can see from these shots, the fact that the Bowery Poetry Club is now located across from the East Village Yacht Club might just be the perfect microcosm of the Bowery in flux.

With the wine-bar craze going at full tilt, it’s only natural that the Malta brothers, with a dozen restaurants to their credit, would want in. They've redone the pleasant but generic Sette as Bar Baresco, a Chelsea wine bar with the mission of promoting Southern Italian wines. “The wines of Southern Italy and Sardinia were ignored for a long time,” says Enrico Malta. “They had great grapes, great soil, but just lacked the technology. But now the winemakers from north are coming down and helping, and the wines in that region are going into another gear.”