The best places to dance in NYC

This hi-fi watering hole boasts three rooms: a lively space for mingling in big booths and listening to vinyl, an airy café with an all-plant-based menu and a back joint that feels like a hypnotic Berlin club for dancing the night away. The beverage program also centers on cocktails concocted from homemade, healthy tonics, and some are also nonalcoholic like the sauce-free blood-orange celery soda or the coconut-water chamomile. We love a nightlife option that leaves you feeling fresh the next day—especially if you don't arrive home until the early morning.

This raging East Williamsburg venue complex features the massive outdoor Brooklyn Mirage sanctuary and a pair of plush indoor rooms: a 15,000-square-foot Great Hall and cozier Kings Hall, that still has a 800 person capacity. You'll see some of the biggest artists in the electronic dance music scene in the open-air Brooklyn Mirage during the summer month, and then keep the party going all year round in the interior spaces which have also hosted heavy-hitters like Jamie Jones, Fisher, Gramatik and Aphex Twin. Don’t miss the immersive projection mapping visuals in both the indoor and outdoor areas.

With its top-flight sound system, sophisticated menu and deeply chill vibes, Nowadays is a slice of Neverland for club kids. Opened by Mister Saturday Night cofounders Eamon Harkin and Justin Carter, Nowadays’ ample outdoor space is the home of its day-party incarnation Mister Sunday and the Ridgewood Market as well as a regular slate of readings and discussions. More recently, a 5,000-square-foot indoor venue was unveiled, so now DJs can spin harder stuff into the wee hours for those who still haven’t adopted grown-up schedules.  

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In recent years, Bushwick has quickly become a queer paradise, with bars like the Rosemont and the Deep End throwing bashes every night, and the Bushwig festival rising in prominence year by year. And with the June 2018 opening of this double-trouble nightlife hub, the neighborhood may be embarking on a new golden age. Enjoy drinks in the lovely Americana bar 3 Dollar Bill, which features shows and events like Sunday BBQ parties; then head to Sutherland, the fabulous warehouse space in the back of the venue, for thumping dance parties every night guided by sound systems inherited from venues like the Roseland Ballroom. Some of the best drag performers and DJs in the city have begun their takeovers of the new spot; get in early and join the community.

So often going to see a concert or checking out that one friend of a friend's DJ set means choosing between a good time and decent food—there's only so many sad fries and buffalo wings we can eat. But, thankfully, 2019 New York nightlife values food and drink as much as any performance. The dual forms of entertainment work in tandem to create the ultimate vibe with menus that no longer lack innovation. The Sultan Room brings a level of kitsch to both the venue's listening room and its attached space for food. In fact, the neighboring restaurant, which opens to the public today, is a near-exact recreation of a beloved Wisconsin spot they used to dine at, using decor the duo bought at auction after the restaurant closed. The to-go area, Döner Kebab, is inspired by revelers of Berlin's clubs who often hit up Kreuzberg döner spots in the late-night. Featuring a state-of-the-art sound system, technicolored lighting, wall decals inspired by mosques and a sunken dance floor, The Sultan Room will offer both live concerts and DJ sets, influenced by global sounds. Expert music curation even extends to The Sultan Room's trippy black and gold glitter bathrooms, which have audio clips telling the history of the original Midwest spot. 

Few places in NYC make you wanna party as hard on a weeknight as this glorious neighborhood spot. Inside, you can sip expertly mixed cocktails at the handsome front bar, then head to the red-lit back room for hip weekly happenings (think frequent all-night, all-vinyl disco sets and local funk bands). Many of our favorite Ponyboy nights are Wednesdays and Thursdays, but check its Instagram each month for a full schedule of events. Head here on a Friday and Saturday to experience it popping off like a full-on nightclub. 

Amid the handful of both legit and underground DIY venues popping up left and right (and vanishing just as quickly) in Brooklyn, here's a spot that we're sure is here to stay. Battery Harris's David Shapiro and Etan Fraiman, Soul Clap's Eli Goldstein, M.A.N.D.Y.'s Philipp Jung and Wolf + Lamb's Gadi Mizrahi are all scene veterans behind the Williamsburg venue, which focuses on “music, sound and intimacy.”

On weekend nights, this particular newsstand transforms into a portal to another world, glowing with rainbow-neon lights, operated by people in leather bodysuits and masks. From the outside, the newsstand is the only clue that there is a lot more going on in this unassuming corner of midtown Manhattan. A couple of doors down, full of psychedelic sculptures, karaoke booths, and burlesque dancers, is one of New York’s most unique new clubs: The Stranger.

Located in the home of former Polish bottle service venue Club Europa, Good Room was redesigned by nightlife impressario Steve Lewis and opened in October 2014. The main room was designed with the DJ in mind with a perfectly placed booth, solid sound system, ample dance floor and small stage for performances. Off that, a massive square bar boasts friendly bartenders and surprisingly reasonable drink prices, while a third smaller room—the Bad Room, as it were—houses a massive wall of vinyl and another DJ set-up for separate tunes.

This cocktail bar down the street from Pianos turns into a party on the weekend and is probably the closest thing to a Brooklyn dance bar you’re going to get in the Lower East Side. Downstairs is where you’ll shake what your mama gave you—there’s a disco ball above a sizable dance floor with an ever-changing roster of DJs setting the scene.

If you peek through the dilapidated warehouses and storefronts in Bushwick, you’ll usually catch sights of bearded men or Edison bulbs signaling “Cool gentrification bar here.” Jupiter Disco, however? Not so much. Its block is so deserted that you might be taken aback when a bouncer coolly asks, “Looking for Jupiter?” Sure, it has a silly name and proudly touts a midcentury dystopian sci-fi theme, but the industrial, LED-lit bar is much less a cheap play at Instagram likes than an earnest letter to the science-fiction genre. ORDER THIS: Pop-culture–nodding cocktails, named after everything from British prog-rock songs (a tequila-vermouth quaff dubbed Confusion Will Be My Epitaph!) to chapters of The Hobbit (a rye-and-sherry–blending Riddles in the Dark). While not every cocktail from bartenders Al Sotack (Death & Co.) and Maks Pazuniak (Maison Premiere) fully takes off—the Well Deserved Punch ($12) is a sugar overload of pineapple, lime and strawberry—the applejack-based How to Travel ($12) surely does. Its sweetness of honey and vermouth is tempered with bitter IPA, striking a smooth, floral balance with a pop of fizz. Heads-up: The bar eschews a physical paper menu for a drinks list that scrolls on two TVs, so keep an eye out. GOOD FOR: Your own modern-day Mos Eisley cantina. (A framed blueprint of the beloved Star Wars tavern can be found on one wall.) The bunkerlike space is outfitted with orange florescent lights, dark turquoise booths and nostalgia-inducing tech tchot

Brooklyn's DIY scene gets a neon-lit glow up at this sprawling music and culture complex tucked away in a burgeoning nightlife district off the Jefferson Avenue strip. The big room fits 700 peeps and boasts a sensory-overloading laser-and-LED light show. And the talent’s decidedly left of the dial, featuring indie-rockers and DJs with a foot still in the underground as well as all-nighters, such as the queer Latinx party Papi Juice. Elsewhere also features a smaller side room that offers its own programming, a second space for larger shindigs and a quiet cocktail lounge upstairs, plus a spacious rooftop deck.    If you're looking to grab a bit while you're there, checkout Mission Chinese's new Bushwick location located on the groundfloor of Elsewhere. The restaurant looks like something out of Bladerunner and has enough szechuan spice to get your palette ready to dance, too. 

This eatery, bar and stage, located on a happening little Williamsburg strip, is a local musical institution with its lively schedule of au courant musical acts and DJs that range from experimental (Pharmakon) to the voguish (Ariel Pink). And the food's pretty good too.

This wild Bushwick spot opened in 2016 and quickly established itself as a reliable way for Brooklyn revelers to wear insane costumes and lose their inhibitions just about every weekend. With exhibitionist parties like “House of Love” and the immersive “Little Cinema” film tributes, along with a panoply of aerialists, magicians and dancers on retainer, House of Yes is constantly inventing new ways to make a night out more than just drinks at the bar.

This Astoria haunt is self-described as “your friendly neighborhood cocktail bar,” but it’s actually more than that. It doubles as a rustic and relaxed dinner and brunch spot, and moonlights as a lively bar where game-playing fiends congregate to play classics from your childhood like Guess Who?, Uno and Scrabble. The spot is also known to host bangin' dance parties. 

This club and live-music venue draws indie bands and party seekers to a relatively quiet stretch of increasingly trendy Crown Heights with events most nights. Be sure to check out their Wednesday party called Almighty Burner where you'll hear throwback funk, soul, boogie, and electro. On the last Saturday of the month, the Brooklyn haunt hosts their longest running party— an old school hip hop party called Future Old School.

Decked out in surprisingly convincing ’70s decor, this Brooklyn lounge puts its sizeable performance space to a diverse number of uses: the eclectic calendar of live music and DJ sets ranges from groovy funk combos to blippy synth-pop acts. Regardless of what you stumble upon, though, you’ll find plenty of dance space available for showcasing your latest moves.

This bowling alley and live music venue fully embraces the new mania for local nostalgia. The space takes its design cues from Coney Island, with old freak-show posters and carnival-game relics, and all of the beer on offer—by Sixpoint, Kelso and the Brooklyn Brewery—is made in the borough. It's a great place to kill a few hours with a big, rowdy group: You can tackle a pitcher and the stoner-food menu from the Blue Ribbon team (delicious fatty brisket, Old Bay–fried chicken) laneside between frames. The plush tufted couches are the most luxurious alley seating we’ve ever seen.