Bar CC: Chelsea's Crane Club Adds a Glitzy Cocktail Lounge in September

One of New York’s most decorated bartenders is trading a skyline view for a Chelsea address — and the move is worth paying attention to whether you obsess over cocktails, celebrity sightings, or the ever-shifting geography of where the city goes out at night.

Harrison Ginsberg, the drinks talent behind Financial District favorite Overstory, is stepping into a lead role at Crane Club, the Chelsea restaurant helmed by chef Melissa Rodriguez and Jeff Katz in partnership with Tao Group Hospitality. Bigger still: Ginsberg will oversee a brand-new, ultra-luxe lounge called Bar CC, slated to open in September at 85 Tenth Avenue, between West 15th and 16th Streets. The space previously housed the pizzeria Mel’s, which has since closed.

Ginsberg announced his departure from his longtime home in an emotional Instagram post on August 3. “It’s difficult to put into words what these years have meant to me,” he wrote, adding that “the awards and accomplishments are only part of the story.”

Why This Move Matters for New York’s Bar Scene

To understand the weight of this news, you have to understand what Ginsberg built. Overstory, perched high above the Financial District with one of the most spectacular views in the city, wasn’t just a pretty room. It earned a spot on the World’s 50 Best Bars list — an honor that puts a New York cocktail program in genuinely rarefied company alongside destinations in London, Mexico City, and Singapore.

Ginsberg joined the 70 Pine Street team back in 2018 and became a key figure in launching what is now Kent Hospitality Group’s ground-floor restaurant Crown Shy, the upstairs fine-dining room Saga, and finally Overstory. That’s a remarkable through-line: three distinct concepts, three distinct crowds, and a bar program that helped anchor all of them.

So when someone with that résumé takes over the drinks at a restaurant already buzzing with A-list energy, the industry pays attention. The obvious question hanging over Bar CC is whether it could eventually compete for its own World’s 50 Best selection. Given Ginsberg’s track record, that’s not idle speculation — it’s a real possibility, and it raises the stakes for a lounge that hasn’t even opened its doors yet.

Who Actually Goes to Crane Club?

Here’s where the story tips from industry insider news into full-blown spectacle. Crane Club already draws the kind of crowd most restaurants only dream about. During the week of the World Cup in mid-July, the guest list reportedly included Mick Jagger, Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio, Adrien Brody, LeBron James, and Jay-Z.

That’s not a typo. That’s essentially a Grammy-Oscar-NBA crossover event happening over dinner in Chelsea.

What makes that concentration of star power interesting isn’t just the name-dropping — it’s what it signals about where the city’s nightlife gravity is pulling. For years, the buzziest tables clustered downtown and, more recently, spread across neighborhoods like Tribeca and the West Village. If you’ve been tracking where the city is eating right now, you know how quickly the map redraws itself. Chelsea, with its gallery crowds and High Line foot traffic, is staking a fresh claim.

A glitzy cocktail lounge attached to a restaurant this hot is a smart play. Dinner reservations are finite, but a bar can extend the evening, absorb the walk-ins, and give the beautiful-people crowd somewhere to linger over a drink after the plates are cleared. Bar CC is essentially built to catch the overflow of one of the most in-demand rooms in Manhattan.

What to Expect From Bar CC

Details on the lounge itself are still emerging, but the framing tells you a lot. “Ultra-luxe” isn’t a word restaurants use casually — it points toward premium spirits, a serious cocktail program, and an interior designed to feel like a destination in its own right rather than a waiting area with stools.

Taking over the former Mel’s pizzeria space gives the team a self-contained footprint to reinvent. That kind of transformation — turning a casual pizza spot into a high-gloss cocktail room — is a familiar move in a city where real estate is the ultimate constraint. The bones of a room can be completely reimagined; what matters is the vision layered on top.

If Overstory is any guide, expect cocktails that lean creative and precise rather than flashy for flashiness’s sake. Ginsberg’s programs have tended to balance technical rigor with genuine drinkability — the kind of menu where a drink looks like art but still tastes like something you actually want two of. For the cocktail-curious reader at home, that’s the real takeaway: watching how a bartender at this level structures a menu is a masterclass in balance, whether you’re recreating a spirit-forward stirred drink or building a bright, citrus-driven summer cooler on your own kitchen counter.

The timing is notable too. A September debut lands the lounge right as the city shakes off its late-summer languor and slides into fall’s busier social calendar. It’s the sweet spot when New Yorkers return from the Hamptons, dinner reservations tighten up, and a new glamorous bar has the best possible shot at becoming the room everyone’s talking about.

A Legacy Woven Into the Announcement

There’s a genuinely poignant thread running through Ginsberg’s departure. In his farewell post, he paid tribute to James Kent, the acclaimed chef and driving force behind the 70 Pine Street projects, who died of a heart attack in June 2024 at just 45 years old.

“Chef James always reminded us to celebrate the wins,” Ginsberg wrote — a line that lands differently when you consider that this move, in a way, is one more win to celebrate in a career Kent helped shape.

That context matters. The New York restaurant world is enormous, but at the top it can feel small and deeply interconnected, built on mentorships and shared kitchens and the people who taught you to trust your palate. Ginsberg carrying that lesson from one chapter into the next is a reminder that behind the celebrity photos and the awards, these are working professionals honoring the people who made them.

The same energy is visible across the city’s most talked-about openings right now — from ambitious farm-to-table efforts like Chef Hasung Lee’s Oyatte to the caviar-and-oysters glamour of Capitaine in the West Village. New York’s dining scene keeps proving that ambition and heart aren’t mutually exclusive.

What You Can Take Away From This

If you’re planning a night out this fall, Bar CC is worth putting on your radar — though be realistic about crowds and expect a scene. For the practical among us, the smarter play might be an early-evening visit soon after opening, before the buzz fully calcifies and before the star-spotters descend.

And if you’d rather stay home? Take a page from the pros. The hallmark of a great cocktail program is balance — acid against sweetness, dilution against strength. Next time you shake a drink at home, taste as you go and adjust in small increments, the way a bartender at Ginsberg’s level would. It’s a low-stakes way to sharpen your instincts, and it costs a lot less than a table at the hottest room in Chelsea.