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The birthday boy threw himself a party for the ages: 30 of his friends gathered on a rooftop space with an unobstructed view of the Empire State Building. He also hired a pair of half-naked Brazilian dancers to wriggle around the room for entertainment and two uniformed staffers to cut and serve the cake he had brought.
The only problem — the birthday boy and his entourage “decided to simply show up,” recalls former Top of the Strand manager Alex Duff, now a partner at Amagansett’s Banzai Burger, of the 2010 incident.
The group didn’t care for the venue’s policies — including a rental fee for groups larger than 10 and a strict ban on birthday cakes — so they simply chose to ignore them and arrive en masse.
“It was like what you’d see at Carnival in Brazil,” says Duff of the dancers. “It reminded me of old times when people would show up at Dunkin’ Donuts for a rave party.
“New Yorkers aren’t used to hearing the word ‘No’ — especially on their birthday,” he surmises.
Hotel management was so furious about the “unauthorized event,” the very next day it hired a bouncer with an ear piece to prevent another birthday bash gone wild.
“Rules were tightened at the hotel regarding birthday cakes, and a nightly security guard was hired,” says Duff. “This policy continues today and [yet] guests have been known to smuggle in contraband — a k a birthday cake — in their coats or backpacks,” he says. “Some [patrons] are slick, using several mules to bring in cupcakes from Crumbs.”
When it comes to birthdays, New York bars have had enough.
While the business is appreciated, the ensuing chaos is not. Especially when celebrants take it upon themselves to transform an unsuspecting bar or restaurant into their own personal version of Chuck E. Cheese.
Among the offenses — unauthorized cakes, tacky balloons and DIY entertainment.
“When people start dictating their terms, it can become a disaster,” says One and One co-owner Paul O’Sullivan, whose East Village pub hosts as many as 10 birthday parties on any given weekend. “We have certain rules in place that come from experience.”
Some of those rules include telling patrons that no matter how many people they’re expecting, they cannot bring in their own DJs. (Yes, people ask.) And all guests must bring ID — it’s not enough to belligerently demand entry because a friend is having a birthday party inside.
Though NoHo’s Great Jones Cafe celebrated its 28th birthday last summer, chef and partner Mark Hitzges isn’t always up for hosting locals’ birthday parties.
“We usually get large groups of people turning 40,” says Hitzges.
“Now it’s 50, because we’ve been here so long. We get a call like that once a week.”
One might expect a birthday party for a 50-year-old New Yorker to be a bit more sedate than that of a 21-year-old kid, right?
“You’d think so,” says Hitzges. “The funny thing about the 40 number — or 50 now — is that they’re choosing this restaurant to relive their 20s for an evening. For one night they’re going to come back and do all the stupid things they haven’t done in years.”
In order to get the parties under control, Great Jones charges $2 per slice of cake, should the customer choose to bring his or her own. And Hitzges tries to limit the guest lists, too.
“We’re so small, we can’t take groups bigger than eight,” says Hitzges. “We try and split them up, but that’s when the roving starts. People move around, and you don’t know who ordered what. It’s madness.”
When that happens, Hitzges says, “People seem unaware of other customers. They’re walking around with cake, leaning on [other] people’s tables.”
He also calls the endless picture-taking that accompanies birthdays “blinding.”
But for narcissistic New Yorkers, such entitled behavior is nothing new — especially on a birthday.
“The first thing babies want, they want their food and drink now,” he says.
When Flatiron Lounge and Lani Kai co-owner Julie Reiner expanded her high-end cocktail empire to Brooklyn in 2008, she thought she’d be getting away from the touristy types who target Manhattan for impromptu birthday bacchanales.
Just after opening Clover Club in Carroll Gardens, she realized she was wrong. “I was so surprised when we opened because . . . I thought it would be a more sophisticated New York crowd,” she says.
Reiner recalls one group that came in, asked for a table for 10 — which quickly grew to 15 or 20, by her count — and then turned the posh Victorian Gothic parlor into its own Times Square.
“They brought glitter and balloons and a cake without asking any of us, and they were like, ‘But it’s my birthday!’ ” marvels Reiner.
“You can’t decorate your table so it’s an eyesore to the rest of the establishment.”
Reiner says that rather than booking the event space in the back of Clover Club, some celebrants show up on busy nights when there isn’t any room for them — or crash the joint on quiet nights, then wonder why the one bartender on staff is taking so long to mix 30 specialty cocktails.
She estimates that her venues host two to three birthday parties a week, which is great when people call in advance and mind their manners. But otherwise, she could do without celebrations honoring members of what she calls the “what-are-you-going-to-do-for-me generation.”
“I don’t get it,” says Reiner. “You are not special. Everyone has a birthday. Everyone has an a – – hole.”