(Photo: Patrick McMullan )

It might seem like the golden age of slick West Chelsea nightlife—with its bottle-serviced bankers and celeb quotient—would be over, but Marquee’s Noah Tepperberg is forging ahead with his latest playland a few blocks south, called Avenue. Still, Tepperberg knows he needs to adapt, which is why the $2.5 million nightspot is a different concept entirely: a “gastropub/ultralounge.” Which means what? “If a typical lounge is a bar with a lot of seating, an ultralounge has moving lights. It’s got some dancing. It’s got a D.J. booth,” he explains, sort of. “And a gastropub is a bar with food. So we’re kind of a mix: It’s not a bar with food, but it’s not a straight ultralounge.” Pause. “So I guess it’s a gastro-lounge.” There’s no dance floor; he promises that patrons will be able to “hear people talk” and “don’t have to buy bottles.” The door will be unmarked, except by a guard with the list. In the run-up to its June 1 opening (with a party for Mandy Moore), Tepperberg’s been hosting “friends and family” like Chace Crawford and Larry Gagosian, and let Marc Jacobs hold fiancé Lorenzo Martone’s 30th birthday party. “I know there’s a need for this product,” he says, before mentioning his next project, a house-music venue in midtown.

Have good intel? Send tips to intel@nymag.com.

Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Jada Yuan
• Table of Contents: Jun 1, 2009 issue of New York | Subscribe!