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.
The upstairs café will become a wine bar at night, and the 4,000-square-foot downstairs space will feature a full bar with a pool room and nightly D.J.’s until 2 a.m. (doors open at 7 a.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays). Bottle service will be an option, but owners Harry Joannides and Gage Pray (who are both managers at Bar Six) say they want their place to be as unpretentious as possible. We believe ’em: They’ve named the joint after Pray’s recently born nephew and niece.
