Danny Meyer Opens His First Standalone Bar, Porchlight, Later This Month

Danny Meyer never rests. A little later this month he and Mark Maynard-Parisi (senior managing partner of Blue Smoke) will open Porchlight, the bar offshoot of his barbecue restaurant, Blue Smoke, out on 11th Avenue in West Chelsea. This is, as the Times points out, a somewhat rare undertaking: Not a lot of big-name restaurateurs operate bars that aren't attached to a restaurant or a hotel project, but that's exactly what this will be. A standalone bar is also not something Meyer himself has done until now.

The project has been in the works for over a year, but the concept hasn't changed. It will serve Southern-style cocktails like versions of a Sazerac and a Hurricane, and a "whisky and Coke" made with housemade cola syrup and Fernet, created by Booker and Dax vet Nicholas Bennett [Update: Bennett is head bartender, but did not create the cocktails]. There will also be food from Blue Smoke's chef, Jean-Paul Bourgeois (whose Southern dishes, in particular, recently impressed Pete Wells), but don't expect a full dinner menu. The food here will be more like bar snacks.