Armin Amiri

We got the details on Armin Amiri's plans for the space formerly known as Cafe Socialista, which he is turning into an exclusive all-night diner.

At a lunch in honor of Bill Maher's Religuous, we solicited opinions on religion and religious person Sarah Palin from Kathleen Turner, Joy Behar, Janeane Garofalo, and Andre Balazs. 

We took a walk down a rather dissolute memory lane with David Carr and Tom Arnold at a Soho House celebration for the film adaptation of Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (bonus: info on star Kirsten Dunst's burgeoning writing career!).

Robet De Niro expressed ambivalence about a poorer--but grittier!--post-crash Manhattan at the premiere of What Just Happened?

We got shut out of Rupert Murdoch's party for New York Post writer Steve Dunleavy, but had a pretty good time anyway.

Just when the era of exclusivity seemed to have peaked in this town, Socialista mastermind Armin Amiri has decided to open an all-night diner—with a guest list from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m.

“It’s gonna be upscale diner food, like Florent, but a couple notches up food-wise,” said Mr. Amiri, who is a former Bungalow 8 doorman and a working actor.

The yet-to-be-named diner will open in the ground-floor space that formerly housed Café Socialista, which Mr. Amiri closed in June.

The Café wasn’t working, Mr. Amiri says, because the food was “almost a Jean-Georges style,” he said.  read more »

Boozehounds are often warned about potential liver problems.

But recent patrons of Armin Amiri's trendy Socialista club may be at risk of something beyond cirrhosis: Hepatitis A.

The Health Department is advising as many as 800 Socialista patrons to get vaccinated, after a bartender at the Greenwich Village hotspot was diagnosed with the contagious liver disease, according to the Wall Street Journal health blog. (Free shots are available at P.S. 41 this weekend.)  read more »

Editors' Note: This article has been corrected from an earlier version which misidentified the grandfather of Simon Hammerstein. We regret the error.

This Thursday, Valentine’s Day, The Box, Simon Hammerstein’s Lower East Side burlesque nightclub, will celebrate its one-year anniversary. To mark the occasion, the exclusive watering hole has arranged an evening of special return performances by the past year’s most popular acts—entertainers like Buck Angel and the Porcelain Twins.

Talking to the Daily Transom today about the past year, Mr. Hammerstein, the grandson of acclaimed lyricist Oscar, said the highlight of the past 12 months was “that we had a small little idea and a lot of people checked in and made it pretty exciting.”  read more »

Bungalow 8’s Prince of the Night, Armin Amiri, steps into his own kingdom. Will downtown society follow?  read more »