Cafe By Day, Speakeasy By Night Opens in Nomad

Patent — a dual concept from creative agency Simmer’s Ryan McKenzie — debuts tonight in Nomad with Patent Coffee, a coffee shop offering pastries and snacks during the day, and Patent Pending, a secret-door underground cocktail bar at night.

Patent is located at 49 West 27th Street in the Radiowave Building, which was formerly the hotel that inventor Nikola Tesla lived in when he first experimented with radio waves. During the day, Patent Coffee will offer specialty grab-and-go coffee, nitro cold brew, pastries, cookies, and chia parfaits, with bulletproof coffee coming soon. The pastries come from Pain D’Avignon, and Patent has tapped Bon Appetit’s senior food editor Claire Saffitz to craft two original cookie recipes baked fresh hourly. Patent Coffee is a small, standing-room-only space.

Photo by Simmer

After 5 p.m., the doors lock and radio-themed speakeasy Patent Pending emerges. The 34-seat cocktail cave can be accessed by ringing a buzzer at street level and then passing through the candle-lit coffee shop to get to the hidden door that conceals the bar. The cocktail program comes from Dead Rabbit and BlackTail veterans Harrison Ginsberg and Nick Rolin and is divided into four Tesla-inspired categories: energy, frequency, vibration, and descent. The full menu is outfitted with sketches and over-the-top introductions for each category: “You are now in a landmarked building conducive to conversation, experimentation and home to the world’s first recorded electrical vibrations,” the “energy” section says. See the full thing below.

Cocktails include the “8:10PM,” Navy Strength Gin with Suze, parsley, dry vermouth, cardoon, and sumac; and the “Hit By a Taxi,” Japanese whisky, Armagnac, sweet vermouth, pu’erh tea, curacao, and star anise. The bar also serves small plates including a bacon grilled cheese, a fried chicken sandwich, and tomato soup.

Patent Coffee is open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Patent Pending is open from 5 p.m. to midnight Sunday through Wednesday and 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. Patent Pending serves its first Teslian cocktails starting tonight.