The most important beverage is the nightcap.
Plus a New York designer launching bridal and Charli XCX joining Substack.
Today’s letter is free to all readers because it is sponsored by Cash App.
Good afternoon. When I was getting bloodwork done this morning while slightly hungover (nightmare), I told the nurse at Quest that she must have the most interesting stories from people she meets. She said, “Yes, but that’s all jobs.” My job last night was sitting at a table with Krithika and Savannah and Anna and Cami and Natasha. While sitting with the needle in my arm this morning, I thought about how some people get paid to draw blood from strangers and some people get paid to write and talk to people. Anyway.
Today’s letter includes: Alex Vadukul’s guide to the best nightcap spots in New York, people are gossiping too loudly about their new jobs, a New York designer launched a bridal collection, and Meadow Lane (Tribeca’s answer to Erewhon) is finally opening.
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I attended a Cash App event yesterday in New York to preview the brand’s fall product release. The first thing I saw was friend of the letter Oren John sipping a Cash App–green matcha latte (“more green” was a phrase we’d hear several times before noon). Executives walked us through Moneybot, a new AI assistant that can answer customer questions about financial decisions and map patterns around income and spending. One business owner on a panel told us, “Over time, this will make your life 10x easier. As someone who experiences anxiety with finances, that’s huge for me.”
Another theme of the morning: the way finance tools still feel stuck in another decade. I spoke with members of Cash App’s design team about how product design shapes a customer’s sense of control (or lack thereof) over their money.
And then there’s the growing freelancer economy. “Banking has not kept pace with the rate of change in our customers’ lives,” Cameron Worboys, Cash App’s head of product design, said. “Forty percent of people don’t get paid via direct deposit.” To address that, Cash App is introducing Cash App Green, a new benefits tier unlocked by either spending $500 a month through Cash App or depositing $300, which is a more flexible approach for the millions of Americans whose income doesn’t arrive on a neat, biweekly schedule.
Social Skills is a monthlong Feed Me series to help you survive the most social season of the year. Today, Alex Vadukul, Styles reporter for The New York Times, on his favorite spots for one of the evening’s most important and unsung beverages: the nightcap.
After Midnight in Midtown
Midtown Manhattan is often maligned as a nightlife wasteland, but it’s filled with after-hours haunts that are perfect for a noirish nightcap. The most delightful might be Mimi’s, a rowdy piano bar and Italian red sauce restaurant that opened on Second Avenue in 1973. Its eclectic clientele, which includes financiers, thirsty journalists, divorce lawyers, heart surgeons and Broadway professionals, feels straight out of central casting. As the night carries on, it unravels into a gin-soaked scene as patrons nurse martinis while lining up to belt out show tunes. When the streets have gone ghostly in the wee hours, and the only sign of life comes from the warm glow of Mimi’s, the place can truly feel like one of those bars at the edge of the world – and when it comes down to it, isn’t that all we’re really looking for in this life anyways?
The Gritty West Village Dive
Just a stone’s throw from Waverly Inn, Don Angie and an Equinox sits the last dive bar in the West Village — Johnny’s. Announcing itself discreetly with only a red neon “BAR” sign, this crusty little dive on Greenwich Avenue is a class-equalizing haven that draws everyone from hedge funders to blue collar types to college students. String lights hang from its low ceiling, dollar bills are nailed to its bar and there’s a jukebox and a busted old payphone. But if you have elevated sensibilities, don’t let my fratty description of Johnny’s put you off. Because of its tony neighborhood, these days Johnny’s mostly just has the gritty vibe of a dive, but it’s a perfectly upstanding drinking establishment. Its snug size and warm roadhouse feel make it an adventurously intimate pit stop for that one last drink.
The Cigar Bar Nightcap
If the clock has just struck midnight, and you and your cronies are inexplicably overcome by the urge to stay out on the town like high rollers, then cram into a taxi cab and head to Club Macanudo on East 63rd Street. Opened in 1995, this cigar lounge and restaurant is a small slice of Las Vegas high life on the Upper East Side. It’s a sumptuous wooden oasis to tobacco and single malt scotch, filled with leather couches and smoky nooks and crannies to tenderly nurse your nightcap in. It’s also one of a handful of elite cigar bars open to the public in Manhattan. While it may have the feel of an old guard private club, so long as you respect its strict dress code, then you’re welcome to come live out your fat cat and pinky ring fantasies here.
Antidote to T.J. Byrnes
For those who prowl the barren streets of Chinatown and the Financial District at night, the plight of finding a good nightcap is a real one. If you’ve grown weary of T.J. Byrnes and 169 Bar, then allow me to introduce to you to the wondrously wacky Cowgirl SeaHorse, a longstanding Tex-Mex and Cajun restaurant located by the waterfront beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. This unsung establishment is defiantly quirky, just like your aunt Sally. Their slogan is “Where Coney Island Meets The Rodeo” and its walls are lined with boat anchors, beach shovels, cowboy boots and mounted fish. It has the feel of a lazy New Orleans saloon and its late night kitchen serves enchiladas, gumbo, nachos, fried pickles, and shrimp and grits. But if you’re winding up here with friends at 2 a.m., you’re ordering their brain-numbingly frozen margaritas, which are made with the same artistry that other bars reserve for the martini.
Baby Balthazar
Founded in 1994, Bar Six is like a baby-size Balthazar in Greenwich Village. This intensely moody, cinematic and dimly lit restaurant might be one of the best – and most unsung – French bistros in downtown Manhattan, and it demands more attention. It also makes for a superbly romantic nightcap haunt. Its tiny bar area is crammed tight with candlelit bistro tables. The dining room is filled with red banquettes, mirrored walls and slow spinning ceiling fans. Their menu is accented with Moroccan-influenced dishes like couscous and chicken tagine, alongside bistro staples like burgers and oysters. And unlike Balthazar – or Odeon for that matter – you can stumble into Bar Six on a Friday night without fear of needing a reservation.
Botox and filler companies are having promotional parties now. Allergan, the company that manufactures Botox and Juvéderm filler, is fighting a dip in sales through a campaign that positions injectables as giving you a “natural” look.
Gauntlett Cheng is launching bridal! They’re calling the collection Weddings, Parties, Anything. Esther Gauntlett (who happens to be married to Feed Me’s
) was inspired by her own process selecting a dress for her wedding. Gauntlett Cheng will be hosting an installation at Null Object this Saturday. There will be limited edition embroidered t-shirts for sale, and you can see some of the new pieces in person. Esther told us:“This collection started with my own wedding dress but quickly grew into something bigger — part indecisiveness and part indulgence. It’s such a pleasure to slow down when making clothes, to use incredible fabrics and yarns and give them the time they deserve. These dresses are all made to order and will be permanently available, but you don’t have to be getting married to commission clothing this way. It’s really beautiful to know the person you’re dressing and lean into the emotions of it.”
- is hiring an intern.
Bustle interviewed Starface founder Julie Schott about being a serial beauty founder. When asked if she thinks much about Emily Weiss, as a successful woman in her industry, she said “no.”
Meadow Lane is finally opening tomorrow. Owner Sammy Nussdorf told Feed Me that they sold their first jar of caviar at the friends and family event yesterday (to his cousin.)
Scoop: New York Magazine is throwing a party at Manuela next month to celebrate their inaugural Culturati 50 issue. The host committee includes Lindsay Lohan, Parker Posey, and editor-in-chief David Haskell.
And GQ’s Men of the Year party is tonight at Chateau Marmont. The theme is “Party like it’s 1995.” Hosts include Stephen Colbert, Sydney Sweeney, and SZA. I almost booked a flight for this. Hope you all have a blast.
I’m so glad that everyone is gossiping loudly. Someone texted the Feed Me tip line last week about a new editor hire at a magazine. She knew about it because she overheard the person talking about the new gig at a restaurant in Soho. Another person in the Feed Me chat today said “Funnily enough at a play this weekend, I overheard a conversation of a woman who was being hired to head celebrity talent at Substack and basically poach more celebs to get on the platform.” Hope that person really got the job!
TikTok’s favorite blonde twins, Brigette and Danielle Pheloung, are launching a clothing line inspired by loungewear their mom wore in the 2000s. Danielle, who gained a following on TikTok for her corporate day in the life videos when she worked at Goldman Sachs, will be the CEO. Brigette will be the creative director. Per WWD, they collaborated with an outside designer, who they declined to name, to help build the collection.
joined Substack. I asked the Feed Me chat what they think this move signals.
said, “A shift from spectacle to process. Pop is usually about the finished good and now we’re going to see more from artists about the process of everything. I think a lot of people are going to try to start positioning themselves as cultural theorists and intellectuals because they don’t want to be seen anymore just as entertainers. People want to prove that they are smart, and the whole guest lecture at Harvard thing doesn’t cut it anymore.” Come hang in the chat.Another sign that webpages are dead and subscriptions power new media: Stereogum is relaunching on a publishing platform called “Lede,” which is the same platform used by Defector. According to an open letter from their founder, they’d been “struggling with an archaic, piecemeal tech solution” and they’re ready for “a big paid membership drive.”
There is an unparalleled beauty in in-person human interaction-based jobs that we will never be able to replicate elsewhere and I am thankful for that
I get a visceral reaction whenever I see an unpaid fashion/media intern posting... You should at least be shelling out minimum wage