From Behind the Bar, Every Night Is the Same Five Hours

A night at Starlets is five hours long. Eleven until four, seven nights out of seven. Starlets is open daily 11 PM to 4 AM, and the room runs that same window every day of the week.

Most guests have this backwards. Weekday and weekend describe your own schedule. Inside the building they describe nothing, because the doors and the close are the same every time. What changes is the name on the night.

The clock does not move

Same doors, same close, seven nights. A room that opens at eleven and shuts at four has no short nights to hand out and no long ones to save up. Whatever separates a midweek visit from a weekend one, the hours are not it.

That is worth knowing if you have been treating a midweek plan as the smaller version of a weekend plan. You get the same five hours. You get them under a different name.

What actually changes

The programming. Six of the seven nights at Starlets carry a name of their own, Monday being the one that does not, and an ordinary week versus a big weekend runs the full lineup night by night.

So the thing you are actually picking is a name, not a day of the week. That is a smaller decision than most groups turn it into, and it is the only part of the choice that changes what you walked into.

What the week looks like from the inside

From behind the bar the week is not seven moods. It is seven identical windows with a different name written across each one, and most of what a guest calls the difference is the difference they carried in with them.

That is why the weekday-weekend argument lands oddly from this side of it. The doors open at eleven either way. The room is not holding anything back for the weekend, and it is not running a shorter version of itself midweek.

The Startenders are the clearest case of the point. They are the venue's own bartender-entertainers, one night is named for them outright, and what a Startender actually is explains why the bar is a destination there rather than somewhere you pass on the way to one.

What nobody here will tell you in advance

Who is working. Rosters move, and any page printing a lineup is guessing at a schedule it does not control. Ask about the night rather than about the people and you get an answer somebody can stand behind.

The same holds for how a specific date will run. That is what the events page and (646) 301-6606 are for, and both of them are looking at the date you named instead of at a template written months ago.

What that means when you are the one choosing

You are choosing a format, not a closing time. That narrows a decision people usually make badly. Which of the six names do you actually want to walk into? Answer that and the date mostly sorts itself out.

Then decide when you are actually walking in, which is a separate question with a separate answer in peak floor versus a looser later crowd.

Five hours is longer than most groups plan for

Most people plan the first hour and improvise the other four. Decide two more things before you leave the house: roughly when you are going home, and who is responsible for making that happen. A five-hour window absorbs as much of a night as you hand it.

Tipping belongs in the same category of things to settle early. Tipping across a long night out is the version worth reading before you go rather than after.

What to ask when you call

Three questions cover almost everything. What is on that night. Whether seating can be held for the number of people you actually have. And whether the occasion changes what they would put you in.

The person on the other end of (646) 301-6606 can answer all three in one call. A website cannot answer the second one, because the answer depends on the date you name and the number you give.

A midweek plan that holds together

Pick the night by its name rather than by which day is convenient. Put the date in one message instead of three. Book the seating under one person. Then tell everyone that you are walking in at eleven, not gathering at eleven.

That last instruction saves more of a night than anything else on the list. A group that starts assembling at eleven is inside by midnight and has spent a fifth of the window on logistics.

Booking works the same way whatever night you pick

Nothing here carries a published figure. Reserved seating with table service, birthday tables, bachelor and bachelorette nights with a dedicated host, and full or partial venue buyouts are all on the service list, and every one of them is quoted once you ask.

So the enquiry is the real first step. Say which night you mean and what the occasion is, and you get a specific answer back instead of a brochure. You can start a booking here.

Same address, same hours, every night

Starlets is at 49-09 25th Ave, Woodside, NY 11377, in Queens. Open daily 11 PM to 4 AM, every night of the week.

For what is actually on for a given night, the events page has it and (646) 301-6606 gets you a person. Pick the name, not the day.