Zinc Bar

For sixteen years, the brother-and-sister owners of the jazz venue Zinc Bar on Houston Street patiently eyed the former Club Cinderella space in Greenwich Village. To the jazz world, the forties nightclub was legendary: Thelonious Monk was the house pianist, Billie Holiday sang there, and Frank Sinatra came to watch Holiday, which might have set in motion their rumored love affair. So when the Irish rock club most recently inhabiting the space finally closed, Alex Kay and Kristina Kossi moved Zinc Bar into the underground venue. And today it still looks like a Bogie gin joint, with a stainless-steel bar stocked with vintage decanters and a classic champagne chiller.