The Grand

douchebag crowd. shitty sound system… wizacckkk

although i’m not a lounge person, one of my friends had his «birthday drinks» here, so i couldn’t not go.
unfortunately, my low expectations weren’t even met. mean bartender (it’s not my fault you make a sh*tty mixed drink), really overpriced, music kept changing in the middle of a song, crowd was boring… overall pretty much a «happy birthday sorry i have to leave» kind of night.

this is DEFINITELY an «eek! methinks not» sort of place. i think if i could, i wouldn’t even give it a full star– just ¾ of a star… and that’s being generous!
my friend and i headed over to the grand for fleet week 07. we had gotten a bunch of advertisements saying that this was the place to be, but when we got there, it was empty and not one sailor was to be found. bad marks for false advertising. the venue is nice enough and it did eventually begin to fill up, but something was off and it just wasn’t great. they also charged gratuity on my friend’s tab without telling her, so she basically tipped them twice. the more i think about it, i don’t even think this place deserves ¾ of a star. maybe just a half.

this place was a good time; went here a couple weeks ago for a friends birthday, and it was fun… the DJ was amazing, i cant lie about that, but the place is pretty expensive (as you would guess from a place on 58^th st in manhattan); but yea, a good time for a saturday nite… nothing special though, you can have a more fun time (and way less expensive) somewhere else…

First off, the crowd outside was a consistant group of people taking themselves too seriously. Guys, relax — no one is after your nine pound gold chain.
Our 1^st attempt to get in was met with «You have to buy a bottle to get in.» We randomly met some girls and got in free. Upon reaching the door, we noticed a gentelman half yelling.
The gentelman was only half yelling because the other half of his mouth was covered with his wife — beater. The other guy, (and by guy I mean douche bag) was our foreshadowing for a terrible night.
For what it is, the grand can’t pull of $ 10 drinks and $ 100 minimums on credit cards, it’s just not that good.

I’m rating purely based on the actual venue, which was below average for a NYC club/​lounge. Small and limited dance space. Because it was a French Tuesday party, the actual party, crowd and music were awesome but I give just 1 star for the venue. On a regular night, I say skip it.

Sophisticated for a club, across from Tao, so can do a mix of both which is good idea. Decent décor and decent mix of music and people. Any place can have an off night, but for the most part this place is on and worth it I’d say. Whether to chill or dance with good ambiance, this works.

Why do people keep having their birthdays this place?
I swear, every other week, either I or a friend of mine get birthday invites to this place. Eventually, we just refused to go, then we would have to make up this whole speal to the birthday celebrant as to why we could not possibly, and even remotely have been able to make it to her birthday bash. Which makes me the liar once every other week. Thanks a lot, The Grand, u suck.
The drinks are overpriced and watered down. The dj is not very good cause the music isn’t all that great. There is no dance floor, just spaces in front of couches. Meanwhile, the couches are only basically useful for girls whose feet are hurting cause of their heels or highly inebriated individuals that wanna pass out, cause the place is definitely not condusive for chatting it up due to the volume of the music. The location sucks as well cause it’s so far. You’re better off just going to places around the Lower East Side, much better lounges/​clubs, and at least if one of them sucks, you can hop yourself to another one that is sure to be close by.

Maritess Z. took Tali A. and myself to this party to say hi to her friend who was having her birthday bash here, and stay or leave depending on how fun the place was. We get there and there is a line, even for people on a guest list. So, we wait, and wait and wait a little more… In the rain. And every time we decided to leave, we were forced to change our minds, once the guest list chica finally decided to get our names, and the second time she actually thought it would be a good time to let us in, but then they tried to charge us some exorbitant cover when we weren’t supposed to get charged at all, so we almost left again, only to see Maritess Z.‘s friend who had organized the party, to make sure we got the right tickets from some dude named Ike so that we could get in for free. WTF. Anyway, we finally get inside, and might I say, it was a nice space, large and classy but the crowd was very NJ-​Long Island trash. I think the average IQ there must have been 50. The DJ was playing good music, but mainly top 40 hits from the last three years, which I could listen to on the radio and dance to at home, right? Also, no one was dancing… Except this one CRAZY chick. She was dancing like a lunatic, I swear, on her knees, on the floor, hands and hair all over the place, very sexual, very not-​classy or becoming, and apparently she was at it all night, even when there were barely any people there. If it weren’t so dark and I had my camera, I’d post it on YouTube. However, she was quite the entertainer, everyone was looking at her, and nothing would stop her, not even people who tried to talk to her, or get in her way. We reckon she was an employee since she had no drinks in her hand, nor was she talking to anyone at all. LOONEYLUNA is what I call it. Thanks to her, Maritess and I decided to upgrade this place to two stars. Needless to say, we left as soon as people blocked our view of the nutcase.

Went on a Friday night for a friend’s BDAY. The line wasn’t long and we got in ASAP. I believe the little bit of rain had something to do with it. They were nice enough not to let us get wet. It was before 12 and the place already had a good crowd. My girl and I didn’t pay cover. Guy friend paid $ 20 though :-(Coat check is $ 4. I’m big on hip hop and I like a diverse crowd. Below is the order of what I liked the most to least…
— The size and décor of the place
— 2 minute wait on line with no cover
— Crowd
— Music
More ppl seemed to be lounging than dancing. Some ppl were really dressed up and some were so so. Drinks are a bit expensive. But they usually are… nothing new. It is not a local lounge at the corner, so don’t be surprised. This should be nothing new if you go to the more popular clubs/​lounges in the city. Duh… what do you expect?!?
Overall, OK. It would have been a lot better if the music was better and had more hiphop and reggae. But that’s subjective since it depends on your preference.

I swear this weekend-​two different parties convinced me to go past 34^th street!
My friend was semi-​promoting this party here and told me to come. I REALLY did not want to come here at all but people guilt trip me on coming here. (BLEH!)
The line was ridiculous and so were the crowd. Yes, there were a lot of diverse group of people lurking in this place.
I never been anywhere where someone that was 70 + years old was drunk off her ass and dancing as though she was at a rave.
This place was massive and yet people were packed as though you were on the subway during rush hour.
Guys here are disgusting — -!!!
The sum of this review — -this place sucks booty!

I will not come back to this place. Very pricey drinks and the bartender i had tricked me into paying more tips on top of their ambiguous and misleading «service» charge.
The DJ sucked. He kept switching music that didn’t even mix well.
Def not recommended.

ugh. average crowd, of which there were just way too many for the space. high prices. rude staff. overall not a fun night… and I shall not waste any more of my time reviewing it. nuff said.

Fucking terrible. Stupid wannabes. God have mercy on their souls.

People actually give an effort to dress up to come here, so I liked it better. Good looking crowd and selection of music (ranged from pop to hiphop and some house). Come after 12 – 12:30 for Saturdays.

The fact that The Grand is in midtown has spared it a bit from the toxicity of the West Chelsea/​Meatpacking nightlife air, and the fact that it’s below ground is kind of cool too. That being said, it’s still a see-​and-​be-​seen sort of place filled with overly made-​up people of both genders. It’s very upscale (lots of red leather), very clean, and the bartenders are decently attentive. I saw on LX. TV that there are some very cool signature drinks that tend to have a champagne slant, but when I was there, it was so packed that I wouldn’t have wanted to order a complicated drink anyway.
Warning to all straight women: maybe it was particular to the night that I was there, but the vast majority of the males present were wannabe-​model types who were clearly not interested in anything that has female reproductive organs.

Pretty good scene. Varirty of people. Celebrity sighting. Good selection of music. However, their sound system was not the best… actually it sucked! Overall an ok, not great, place.

I’ll start by admitting that this review is quite biased. Let me explain.
I met a girl at another bar, and she brought me with her friend to the Grand. Fortunately, they knew someone on the inside, so we were able to skip the line, pay no cover — is there a cover? — and enjoy bottle service once inside.
Now, this was all a new thing for me, and I loved it. Lots of nice, beautiful people and a DJ with excellent mixing skills. Although I would expect otherwise, this place didn’t feel pretentious.
I give it high marks all around, but again, I’m still quite biased by the euphoria lingering after tonight’s events.

What used to be known as the AuBar has now become The Grand. A little renovation and touchups here and there has transformed it into a posh, basement level lounge with VIP rooms located in the center /​front and table service directly in the middle. It does serve as a great place to dance and the cocktail waitresses are gorgeous.
Unless if you can make it here for an actual event, beware of the high drink and bottle prices. The music is a little on the house side of things, mixed with a little techno and funky 80s remixes. Eventually it all dies out and becomes a hip hop place, which gets the place really going. The crowd is mixed and comprised of professionals in the 25 – 35 age range.

I came here for the company holiday party and ended up staying a little bit longer to see what the crowd was like on a Friday night. The holiday party was great. We had some terrific chinese food from Philip Chow, very authentic but cleaned up a bit and catered, such as the duck wrapped with carrots and lettuce.
This used to be Au Bar, I feel like when I went to Au Bar and then when I went to the Grand, they are quite different in design and space. The Grand broke up the bar into two tiny three sided bars, with tables and couches in between them. Alluring spacious circle booths line the back, with the middle set up with red couches, tables, and the dance floor is smallish with the DJ hovering above. On the right toward the back past the dance floor are clear partitions into another room/​recess with tables and couches along the walls. there’s lots of space here folks, its a really swanky lounge to frolic; however the crowd that I saw coming in really didn’t look appealing at all, a bit stuck up and ultra trendy. Its like they are expensive people. There are expensive things and such, but I feel like its a good way to describe the thin models and sharp suits entering upon our holiday party’s finishing. I did not stay long, as going from having a blast to feeling this subdued early crowd wasn’t the best transition. I may trek back there again, but I’d like to see what other people think before considering it.