Those of you who keep track on the gentrification of Manhattan's Lower East Side—the neighborhood's "coming of age" is the euphemism hotelier Jason Pomeranc prefers—may have been amused by the minor hullabaloo surrounding a post on New York Magazine's website about a soon-to-be-opened bar called "The Eldridge." Well, not just any bar: owner Matt Levine, who also owns the clothing label Steelo (What's Steelo, you ask? Per Urban Dictionary: "Slang for style; a playa's aura"), pretty much promised that "The Eldridge" would revolutionize nightlife as we know it. There would be butlers, not bartenders. Chaperones, not security guards. Table attendants, not waitresses. It would be closed during the weekends because "Everyone I know goes away on the weekends." There would be $650,000 worth of Champagne on the wall, and more Rose Armand de Brignac than in the "entire state of New York." Access would be granted only to those who have a "laser-engraved entry card." People from Brooklyn would be banned. And so on and so forth.

Yesterday, we checked out the place, which was being used for a shoot for Blackbook magazine. Levine says it's "90 percent done—we still have to install the fold-out movie screen in the front," and that the place is "already fully booked for Fashion Week." The specialty cocktail list and menus are printed on wooden planks. The median price of a drink was $25; the signature "Eldridge" was $32. A bottle of Dom cost $3,200.

The walls are indeed lined with bottles of Champagne—they're all brushed gold, as is the floor, which is "hand-stamped cement" mixed with gold flakes and glossed over with gold polish. Levine also struck up some sort of sponsorship with Smartwater; the company's logo is stenciled onto the plexiglass panels that surround the DJ booth. This looked weird. (Update: the bar does serve Smartwater, but the stencil was only for the shoot.)

Most importantly, Levine said interest in the place "blew up" after he came off sounding like a douchebag in the New York story. He readily acknowledges that he sounded like a douchebag. "Yeah, I came off sounding like a jackass," he says. "But, you know, now business is really picking up."