Overview
Leading your friends down the secluded staircase and into this delicious candle lit basement lair will doubtless impress.
**Closed Sept 29th to make room for yet another crappy velvet rope, bottle service club to be called Femme Fatale**
Hidden location. Check. Dim lights, low ceilings, DJ. Check, check, check. Pretense. Checked at the door. Double Happiness has always had the right ingredients for a truly great New York bar, but over the years its gone through the same transformations that every great venue endures. First came the models, celebrities and long lines. Then in the wake of that fickle lot the hordes of Jersey and Long Island descended, and for a couple years they laid claim to every weekend night. Eventually the B&T crowd moved on to lay waste to other venues, and now Double Happiness is finally realizing its potential. No longer a scene, but always scenic a true classic New York bar.
Why you should go
- You walk down the stairs into Double Happiness and enter a hidden world. There are only a very few places in New York that feel as hidden and secluded as this (Angel Share is another).
- The dim lights and close quarters make this a perfect place to take a date or find one.
What you should know
- There's clearly one prime seat here. The enclosed skylight lit nook behind the beaded curtain in the back (to the left of the bar). Get here early with some friends and take it over. You won't want to leave.
- Spike Lee's 25th Hour has a bar scene filmed here.
- Before its present incarnation the bar was a mob run gay bar.
- Double your happiness from 6-7:30 on weekdays with 2 for 1 drinks.
- Double Happiness is the Chinese character for marriage.
- Happy Ending is the younger clubbier sister bar by the same owners.
- The house special Green Tea Martini is a worthy choice, and it gels well with the underground urban sophisticate atmosphere.