Café Select, the Swiss restaurant that the guys from Touch of Class are opening with the help of Serge Becker, held its first party a couple of weeks ago, and another one on Monday, but we’re hearing from one partygoer, who talked to insiders, that it won’t fully open for another four to six weeks. Our mole says he enjoyed a “Ski Water” (vodka lemonade with grenadine and soda), and some “very, very good bratwurst.” The kitchen, we’re told, is large — almost the size of the seating area — and the most memorable design aspect, aside from the Rolex clock we told you about earlier, is the ceiling: “It looks like a close-up version of a drop ceiling, with the holes magnified to about the size of a quarter,” says our spy. “Also, there are large industrial-looking circular vents built into it.” Can’t wait to see.

Swiss Watch: Serge Becker's Café Select Soft-Opens Across From La Esquina

If you haven’t been to the Box lately, things are the same as ever there. In a LiveJournal post, a one Miss Bunnyhead Darling, after gloating that she got a $1,000 table for free, assures that MC Raven is still up to his old tricks: “Everyone in the crowd was totally fried & the MC… would periodically yell, ‘Do more coke, you fuckers!’” Simon Hammerstein, too, is still striving for crassness. In a BlackBook.com piece about Coney Island sword swallower Heather Holliday, author Jessica Pilot (she of the bagel-scooping jeremiad) writes: “Recently she performed at the Box, the exclusive Lower East Side burlesque nightclub. Asked by one of the owners if she could replace her sword with a dildo before hitting the stage, she politely declined. Heather knew better.” Incidentally we hear Hammerstein and Serge Becker are still scouring Manhattan for a building with a 10,000-square-foot basement and rooftop that they can turn into a booze-serving bathhouse. No word on whether the saunas will be outfitted with S&M gear like the bathrooms at the Box.

World’s Youngest Sword Swallower Reveals All [BlackBook]
Miss Bunnyhead Darling [LiveJournal]

We’ve seen Community Board 2 crush a man’s hopes and dreams before, so we were a little concerned for Serge Becker, Oliver Stumm, Dominique Clausen, and their new project at 212 Lafayette. No need, as it turns out! CB2 minutes tell us the Swiss restaurant will have 53 seats and an eight-person bar, and the hours will be from 8 a.m. till 1 a.m. during the early week and until 2 a.m. later in the week. Despite the concerns of one resident, the board issued its stamp of approval. The application is still being considered by the SLA, but we predict the Swiss ambassador won’t have to step in here — a liquor license will be granted, and the first round of Kübler absinthe will be on us.

Earlier: Confirmed: Serge Becker Reviving Eastanah Space

Serge Becker’s rep Nadine Johnson isn’t saying anything outside of what we’ve already heard about his new restaurant in the old Eastanah space, but for the record, she confirms that his partners are Oliver Stumm and Dominique Clausen of A Touch of Class. The strategy is brilliant: Open a smallish place so that the overflow is forced to grab a taco at La Esquina across the street. Not that it’s that easy to walk into that place. Serge Becker is one of the city’s most modest restaurateurs, so on his behalf we’re calling for the traffic island across from La Esquina and the new place to be rechristened Serge Becker Park.

Earlier: Is This Serge Becker’s New Restaurant?

A source close to D.J. duo A Touch of Class says that Oliver Stumm and Dominique Clausen, both Zurich natives, are collaborating with Serge Becker on what will be a Swiss restaurant in the space at 212 Lafayette Street. The building formerly housed Eastanah, the Malaysian restaurant adjacent to Becker’s cash cow La Esquina (Becker, of course, also has a hand in 205 and the Box, nearby). We have yet to receive confirmation from Becker’s rep, and, by the looks of their Website, Stumm and Clausen are currently gigging (and researching?) in Switzerland, but when we cruised by the construction site earlier today, a bar was under construction. The SLA's site says only that one 212 Lafayette LLC applied for a liquor license in March and it's currently pending. Becker is also of Swiss heritage, so if anyone will know how to pull off this unique concept (or any concept!), it’s him. Stay tuned for more.

A year ago, Keith McNally claimed Morandi would be his last restaurant, but he revealed at last night's Community Board 2 meeting that Minetta Tavern will join his repertoire. McNally plans to keep the name and setup, but change the menu from Italian to French, in the vein of Balthazar. When community residents asked what sort of crowd McNally's name may draw, he retorted, "They won't be French," and explained that his restaurants are "not the type of places where people spill out of white limos." So he's not expecting this to be the next Waverly Inn? "I'm lucky if I open the doors and people come," McNally said. The board approved McNally's bid.

La Esquina showed how it's done when it pleaded for a liquor license for its sidewalk café. A large group of supporters attested that owners Derek Sanders and Serge Becker are "altruistic and very caring." Said one resident: "I would personally be bothered if I couldn't sit down and have a beer." Word! And application approved. —Lucy Tang

Ah, the tangled web of nightlife ownership. A while back, Serge Becker, part-owner of The Box and La Esquina, told us in a statement that Cordell Lochin, the young scenester who presented himself as a partner in Becker’s restaurants before being convicted of drug-conspiracy charges, was merely an “indispensable advisor.” A December 15 memo from a government attorney calls that assertion into question, pointing at an undated letter from Becker that describes Lochin as “more than just a business partner.” That letter pleads for leniency because his company is “in the design stage of our second location of ‘La Esquina’ in Miami Beach at ‘the Gale’ hotel.” Exciting news, innit?

Guest of a Guest broke the story yesterday that Cordell Lochin — thought be a partner in Serge Becker’s joints La Esquina, 205, and the Box — will be sentenced on October 10 for importing more than 100 kilos of weed and dealing it in New York in 2004 and 2005. There’s been speculation that the August 24 raid of the Box and La Esquina was related to this, and we’ve heard rumors that Cordell was recently arrested again — but the Box’s publicist, Nadine Johnson, tells us neither of these things are correct (a check with NYPD turned up no recent arrests). She also describes Cordell as a consultant and not a partner in the Box, as reported in a recent Observer profile and other places: “We had taken the decision to call him a partner, but he isn’t a real partner or employee for the Box or La Esquina.” Serge Becker did not know about Cordell’s past until ten days ago, when his case went to trial, Johnson says. She also issued an emphatic statement to Grub Street on behalf of Becker further disavowing Cordell’s ownership stake.

La Esquina’s basement and the Box are open again, but Serge Becker’s woes may not be over. Alberto Armendarig, a reporter for Mexican newspaper La Reforma tells us that last Saturday at 205 (another joint Becker has his stamp on), he was choked by a bouncer and bodily ejected from the club in such a way that he tried to press assault charges (cops didn’t find any marks on him and told him to brush it off and call it a night). Sounds like any other Saturday to us, but Armendarig says he’s now on a quest to close the club down. As it turns out, he may not have to lift a finger.