About Me
Garden City Hotel's Posh to Undergo Makeover
Newsday Article - July 6, 2007By Keiko Morris
The Garden City Hotel's upscale nightclub has witnessed more than two
decades of fashion trends, music and celebrities through its several
incarnations and name changes. And now it's about to undergo yet
another identity shift, perhaps the biggest in its career.
Tonight, the hotel's Post Ultra Lounge will throw the last of its
regular Thursday night parites, bringing down the curtain on a
storied history that began in 1985, a nightclub scene of $3,000
suits, Mercedes, BMWs and free-flowing Cristal. The nightclub will
retain its name - Posh - but will undergo a facelift and reopen as an
upscale venue for everything from corporate and charitable affairs to
culinary events, said Brian Rosenberg, Garden City Hotel vice
president of sales and marketing.
The nightclub scene has changed, Rosenberg said, and the general
nightclub trend on Long Island is toward more casual dress -- a style
that doesn't quite fit the hotel's image or that of the hotel's two
restaurants - Rein Bar & Bistro and Polo, the more tony of the two.
"We're not closing," Rosenberg explained. "We're just adapting to our
environment and our strengths."
The Garden City Hotel's strengths, according to Rosenberg, involve
catering to a growing customer base looking for more upscale venues
and an experience more in line with what its two restaurants offer.
Polo has been rated among the top restaurants on Long Island, and the
hotel's executive chef and wine director, Steven De Bruyn, has won
critical praise for the food at both Polo and Rein.
The change "gives us more room to play," De Bruyn said. "This is not
going to be a regular, standard banquet room. And for me, it's an
opportunity to be unique."
Pairing dinners with beer is one way De Bruyn plans to make use of
the space. Beer enthusiasts have difficulty finding upscale beers at
restaurants, he said, even when it's obvious that a wine won't pair
well with certain dishes, particularly spicy ones. So, in October, he
plans to use Posh as a venue for beer-pairing dinners, similar to the
wine pairing dinners offered at Polo. "That would be a great room to do it in and it's less stuffy than
Polo," he said.
Posh and its previous versions -- which have been managed by
Rosenberg for 17 of its 22-year-run -- have built a reputation as
tough competitors, outlasting many a challenger. But this time,
Rosenberg and the Garden City Hotel have made an agreement with one
of Posh's fiercest contenders: Mirage, a Westbury nightclub.
Mirage has agreed to absorb about 90 percent of Posh's staff of 40
and provide free limousine service and admission to the club for the
hotel's guests. Mirage will also have access to Posh's mailing lists.
John Smythe, owner of Mirage, said he was "absolutely shocked" when
he heard that Posh would no longer be a nightclub. "Twenty-two years
for a night club is unheard of for Long Island and New York City,"
Smythe said. "It's been like an institution."
Smythe said he views the merger of Posh's staff, particularly the
bartenders, with his "blessing." Though bars in nightclubs tend to be
more impersonal than watering holes, Smythe said that good bartenders
at the popular clubs have a following, and he's hoping to draw some
of Posh's following to his club.
Since Posh's inception as Club G in 1985, the Long Island nightclub
industry has blown through many trends and seen the population of
clubs drop by at least half, according to Keith Hart, a veteran of
the Long Island club industry and now owner of the Hart Agency, a
marketing, advertising and modeling agency in Farmingdale and Manhattan. There were more nights to go out, he said, and, for many,
nightclubs served the purpose now claimed by Internet dating services.
"Years ago, if you had a disco ball and a sound system and you opened
up somewhere, you were successful," he said. "Three to five nights a
week you were open."
Today other forms of entertainment vie for people's time and the
competition among nightclubs has intensified. Renovating and
reinventing the club every four years became a must after about 1995,
Rosenberg said. Club G became Dallenger in 1996 and then emerged as
Blu in 2000. Shortly after Mirage was launched, the Garden City
Hotel's club transformed into Posh.
Until recently, Posh and Mirage battled like cats and dogs for the
partying population, Hart said. When one club brought in a famous DJ,
the other would bring a celebrity name to spin the next night. These
days, Hart said, clubs attempt to elevate their image by bringing in
celebrities.
Rosenberg expects the celebrities to continue to come.
"The celebrities we get here, their tastes have changed," Rosenberg
said. "Back in the day they loved the club, now they like Rein and
Polo."
Posh is available for Private Parties & Corporate Events
Call 516 747 3000 for more information
