Pegu Club

Pegu Club's street-level door on Houston Street was marked only by a small brass dragon business-card holder¹. Audrey Saunders, already known as a bartender and a protege of Dale DeGroff, opened it in 2005, on August 29 by the bar's own count^{1, 2}, with Julie Reiner among the co-founders¹. The space had been a "scrappy" music club¹, and the name came from the Pegu Club, a British colonial club in Myanmar, and its signature cocktail¹.

The menu mixed forgotten classics with Saunders' own drinks, among them the Gin-Gin Mule and the Old Cuban¹. Our listing called the cocktails second to none, with one catch: all that craft took time, and getting a drink on a Friday night could be a challenge. The opening staff, Toby Maloney, Phil Ward, Jim Meehan and Chad Solomon, would all eventually create cocktail ventures of their own¹.

The bar had been looking forward to a grand 15th anniversary on August 29, 2020². Instead, on April 30, 2020, Saunders announced that it wouldn't reopen after the COVID-19 shutdown, though it had meant to stay until its lease ran out on October 31^{1, 2}.

Ayah, a Moroccan restaurant, celebrated its grand opening at 77 West Houston on September 10, 2025^{3, 4}, and The Infatuation found live music, belly dancing on some nights and free mint-tea vodka shots poured from a silver teapot⁴.