Real estate developer and hotelier Ian Reisner has signed a lease to take over the previous Playboy Club space and the Cachet Boutique Hotel NYC on West forty second Street — and the plan is to transform it into a gay-friendly hotel, restaurant and nightclub, Side Dish has learned.
The renovated property — featuring a 103-room hotel at 510 W. forty second St. between tenth and eleventh Avenues — shuttered last October after operating for six years.
The Playboy Club flamed out in 2019 after being open for barely a yr.
Reisner says he’s in talks with a European boutique hotel operator to open this September. Until then, the as-yet-to-be-named hotel will operate as an Airbnb as early as this month, he said.
“It’s a gay hotel where straight family and friends are welcome too. It’s a reorientation, and a form of play on words,” Reisner told Side Dish in a phone interview this week.
The West forty second St. space features a 7,500-square-foot restaurant and customary area that may be open for breakfast, lunch, dinner and late-night dining, Reisner said.
There’s also a 14,000-square-foot entertainment complex that may include an “experiential supper club” where the the previous Playboy Club used to be, a dance space and a subterranean cellar mixology bar.
The remaining of the property, including a 3,000-square-foot restaurant — which is waiting to obtain a liquor license — will open by the autumn. A source added that Reisner can be “in talks” to usher in a well known brand for the mixology bar — a 750-square-foot cellar space for around 100 individuals with “banquettes, high-top tables, a bar and thick marble.”
It’s a return for Reisner, who previously co-founded the gay-friendly Out NYC hotel in the identical space in 2012, when it was dubbed town’s “recent all-singing, all-dancing gay hotel.”
Ahead of its time, the hotel — and Reisner — were ultimately boycotted by the gay community in 2015, after Reisner hosted then-presidential Republican candidate Ted Cruz, who opposed gay marriage, for a dinner at his home.
“We were chased out of the business,” Reisner said.
Sources told Side Dish Reisner also received death threats on the time.
Cachet Boutique Latest York Hotel and the Playboy Club, which got here next, also didn’t fare well — even following a $3 million renovation.
“Principally they mistimed it by 20 years,” Reisner said. “The Playboy Club name was offensive. They opened in 2018, throughout the #MeToo movement. You possibly can’t put women in a second-class position.”
Reisner adds: “The hotel failed for a unique reason — they selected a terrible name. The Cachet Boutique Hotel. If you’ve cachet or panache, you don’t say you’ve it, you only do.”
When Reisner previously owned the Out hotel, the restaurant was referred to as KTCHN, and it was open from 2012 to 2017.
During that era, the nightclub operated as XL but in 2017 it swapped owners and was converted to the Playboy club, which morphed into Nightclub 42 d’Or before closing in December 2022.
Twelve years later, the neighborhood has transformed dramatically — from a barren wasteland to a bustling a part of town benefitting from recent developments and a complete recent Hudson Yards project crammed with individuals who live, work, dine and shop there.
“The realm is much more vibrant now,” said Ariel Palitz, a world government and hospitality consultant, and the founding former head of the Latest York City mayor’s office of nightlife.
“In theory [launching a gay-friendly hotel in the ‘hood is] a great and vital idea and can be nothing but positive if done right and done well. In a city crammed with hotels, there’s room for yet another dedicated to a gay clientele and culture that may create a protected and fun place for them — especially at a time once we are seeing some backtracking on gay rights, and all rights,” Palitz said.
Reisner agreed. “It’s way higher now,” Reisner said. “Developers proceed to construct there. Before we were struggling. There was nothing. Now it’s all Hudson Yards — vibrant area and neighborhood.”