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Steer clear to the open bar, please!
NYC’s newest entry to the micro category of subway bars–pour houses adjacent to the otherwise dry MTA–opened on New Year’s Eve, we first spied in the New York Post.
Nothing Really Matters is the latest from Adrien Gallo, whose previous endeavors included Double Happiness and Grand Banks. It’s located between the entrance and the turnstile in the downtown-bound 1 train station at 50th Street and Broadway.
“Expect the unexpected, right?” says head mixologist Cyllan Hicks. “It’s kind of like an old-school New York idea, where you walk down to a hidden cocktail bar. It’s kind of like a mystery for people when they come down here. And the place is beautiful.”
The cinematic subway entrance that leads to Nothing Really Matters is next to the Duane Reade on 50th Street near Broadway. The facade is adorned in signs for the newsstand and barber shop that previously operated in the station’s small retail areas. An illustrated haircut legend is still on display. Trash is strewn about. It looks like a subway station from 1984’s Ghostbusters.
“The other day I saw a couple walking down,” Hicks says. “I’m overhearing the guy saying, this is really sketchy. But then, when they open the door, they’re like, wow.”
Nothing Really Matters is down the stairs and to the right, its large windows obscured by blinds Gallo designed and had custom made. It approaches notions of that often theme-y S-word.
“Yes, we do have a speakeasy vibe,” Hicks says. “But to me, it's more of a cool cocktail bar that happens to be in the subway station.”
Inside, the long oak bar is backed by rows of bottles lit from below, illuminated like a boozy skyline snapshot. There’s a disco ball in the corner and the bathroom is covered in glitter wallpaper. Cocktails like the Empire State (vodka, maple, spiced apple, lemon), Knickerbocker bramble (bourbon, rosemary-blueberry compote, lemon) and the Time Out (Jamaican hibiscus, ginger, soda) are named in nods to New York. Classics, low- and no-ABV options are all on the menu.
Gallo inked his deal for the quirky location after a long search in the months before the pandemic. He recalled the space’s previous iteration as the famed Siberia bar’s original location. That beloved dive haunted this same passageway in the late 90s.
“I knew that there was a precedent for this little subway station,” Gallo says. “It kind of says it on everyone's face that actually walks in: They're wowed by the space, they're immediately transported somewhere else,” he says.
Gallo plans to introduce snacks (likely chips, caviar and crème fraîche) in the coming weeks, and frozen drinks will follow closer to the summer. A ten year lease leaves plenty of time to achieve his other casual ambitions for Nothing Really Matters.
“With Cyllan, and his expertise, we’re gonna be the best cocktail bar in the universe that just happens to be underground," he says.