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“People around my age, late 20s and early 30s,” says nightlife vet Nick Valencia, “they’re not feeling the new spaces that are out and the bullshit at the door and the bottle service.” To remedy this, he’s opened this chill lounge on the Lower East Side as “an alternative to someone who doesn’t wanna be out sweating with 300 people in a dark place. I wanted to keep it low-key.” The lounge’s name is short for “white label,” a reference to underground music tracks that had yet to be picked up by a major label. It’s a nod to the place’s music-centric edict—Valencia was a former manager at Cielo—with a focus on “disco-funk-soul-Latin-Afro- beat-new-jazz-deep-house,“ he says in one breath. The eclectic space, with its antler sconces, bookshelves and candles, has 14 speakers, and the entire ceiling is lined with a 2-inch acoustic sound blanket. For noshes, there are four kinds of Colombian-style empanadas (his father is Colombian), while a wide range of caipirinhas and caipiroscas mix things up with ingredients like strawberry, pineapple, grape, kiwi and even sake. 

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Lower East Side bars, Lower East Side restaurants, Dance bars, Lounge bars