The Latest Retail Trend: Pretty New Bars--in Stores! Four Good Ones.

By Erica and Karen

Have you noticed? Stores are offering something new. Bars. With stools. And alcohol. Maybe a lounge. Free for shoppers. What is going on? Are we seeing retail’s new vision for its future?

We’ve known for some time that brick and mortar stores, even with beautiful merchandise beautifully displayed, don’t deliver enough to survive. Retail has to give us more. If this is what “more” can look like, we are on board.

These elegant new bars, set in prime selling floor real estate, remind us that shopping can and should be more than a lonely relationship between us and our computers. They are an investment in shopping as a social activity, involving friends, partners and even new people with similar tastes. They invoke all the senses, not just our eyeballs. They provide a new kind of space where we can meet up, be together. They urge out of town visitors to stop, take a load off their feet, maybe buy something and chat with the locals. They entice our partners and non-shopper friends to join us by promising a perfect perch (and the right frame of mind) to respond to “what do you think?” There are, if course, some of us who will just want to sit back, relax, take in the view and have a cocktail. Why not?

Retailers clearly have made a bet that by offering customers and their friends a drink, by providing a space to linger, their coffers will expand. People will shop longer and buy more. And just think about the endless event space opportunities. This bet will surely pay off. But let’s not stop here. The refashioning of retail needs to continue. High tea? Outdoor space on rooftops? Bigger, better lit dressing rooms? Stylists? Tailors? Storefronts are critical to neighborhoods and to community. Let’s do our part to make sure they do theirs. Let’s go have a drink.

So, where are these little jewels?

• Manolo Blahnik, the shoe store, on Madison Avenue at 63rd Street, has a little blue velvety bar on the men’s side of the store. Our only quibble is that its placement suggests that men will be doing the sipping while watching women consider their potential purchases. Of course, women with other women may need the same respite, so once again we will have to invade male space to get what we want. But it’s only a few steps—so no big deal. It’s a good thing, no matter where.

• Or, while you’re in the neighborhood, stop in a few doors down at Bruno Cuchinelli, the high end clothing store. You may not buy anything but you can browse, sit at the bar or in the lounge area, and feel like a million bucks even if you’re not wearing it.

• The Bucherer Time Machine, formerly Tourneau, the new flagship watch store on East 57th Street—Oh my! You can pick up a cocktail when you first walk in OR you can go downstairs. And there will you see a long large gorgeous well lit bar. A lounge with comfortable sofas and beautiful coffee table books and games. Art by New Yorkers Julian Schnabel and Man Ray. You don’t even have to go to the bar. You will be asked whether you would like a cocktail even while you are, say, gazing longingly at the extravagant watches or waiting at the repair counter. We met some interesting folks there. The whole place is really something.

• Downtown there’s the new Soho.Home.Studio on West 14th Street in the Meatpacking District. Displaying furniture, lighting, accessories, all from the Soho House team, this store also says, “if you want to be surrounded by cool and lovely things, hang out here.” OK, we will.

Department stores have been at this for some time with in-store dining and drinking, going way back to the Birdcage at Lord & Taylor and forward to today’s L’Avenue on the top of Saks Fifth Avenue and the multiple bars at the new Nordstrom on West 57th. But this is different. More intimate, more personal somehow, more connected to the merchandise being sold and the people selling it all around you.

We like it. Let us know what you think. And let us know what else you see popping up in retail..