Exactly one year ago, on a brisk October evening, a few hundred people gathered on a stretch of sidewalk on Grand Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown, taking in a performance by the rollicking violinist Adrian Jusdanis of the band New Thousand. Riveting as he was, Jusdanis was only the warmup for the main act: the reopening of Beverly’s, the beloved artist-run bar first established in 2012, whose original location at 21 Essex Street closed amid the pandemic in 2020. Though there had been temporary spaces and traveling exhibitions since, a permanent home had long remained elusive.
So when Beverly’s finally moved into 297 Grand Street, founder Leah Dixon wanted a party—of course. But she knew there would also be some grief: for the old location, for how much New York had changed since COVID, for how rocky the path to reopening had been. She had a vision of everyone at the threshold waiting to enter the new spot together, sharing in the experience of being locked out. “No one gets to just walk right in,” Dixon, who is also a sculptor, explains. Sure, she had been building out the physical space for months. “But it’s not Beverly’s until everyone comes inside.”
To understand why so many people would stand outside for an hour in 48-degree weather waiting to get into a bar that doesn’t advertise, doesn’t have any celebrity or influencer ties, doesn’t serve some crazy signature cocktail or food item, and doesn’t have a big financial backer, you have to understand the wide web that Beverly’s has woven in the art world. Since the original location opened over a decade ago, Beverly’s has shown the work of about 300 artists, including Michael Assiff, Zachary Fabri, Emily Weiner, Edward Salas, Carlos Rosales-Silva, and Azikiwe Mohammed. It’s given artists jobs that fund their work. It’s been a site where friendships and romances are forged, and deals between collectors and dealers are struck. The Beverly’s team has installed satellite exhibitions in Puerto Rico, Miami, and Mexico City, where they have participated in the Material Art Fair for the past 10 years. And Beverly’s is just as likely to host a zine fair as it is a late-night DJ set or a political meetup. It’s a 21st-century Cheers for a certain kind of arty downtown crowd, powered by a punkish DIY spirit and an epic amount of determination.
“I feel like Beverly’s in itself is pretty much an experimental artwork that has morphed and sustained for over a decade in New York City, and supported generations of artists through multiple iterations of what it was able to be,” says Anne-Laure Lemaitre, an independent curator.
“It’s a space where anything is possible. Everything is happening through sheer love and passion, which for a lot of us, that’s kind of the only option,” says Rosales-Silva, who in addition to showing his own paintings with Beverly’s is helping grow its nascent nonprofit.
And Beverly’s doesn’t just appeal to the up-and-comers. The multidisciplinary artist Jo Shane, who at 70 has been a New York City artist for the past 50 years, calls Beverly’s a “safe haven.” She first visited 21 Essex in 2015. “Beverly’s represented that ability to be respected as a space that showed cutting-edge work, but also was outside the gallery system and had its own life,” she says. “At the time, I would’ve cut off my right arm to show there.” (She did exhibit her installation work at Beverly’s in 2018, both arms intact.)
Now, one year into operating the new permanent space, Dixon is in a reflective mood. Can they re-create the magic of Essex Street on Grand, at a time when the neighborhood, the art world, and the broader culture have all drastically changed?
The story of Beverly’s is inseparable from that of its neighborhood. Dixon moved to New York City from Ohio in 2004—“Literally, I took my last final and got in a car”—and the address of her first Manhattan apartment was, in fact, 21 Essex Street. (That’s how she eventually got the lease for Beverly’s in 2012; she knew the landlord.) The Lower East Side in those early-aughts years was almost unrecognizable compared to the Dimes Square of today. “169 was there, but that’s, like, the only thing,” Dixon recalls. She started working at Welcome to the Johnsons, the 1970s-basement-themed dive bar on Rivington that miraculously still exists, and quickly worked her way up to manager. When the owner opened a new spot on Orchard Street called Sweet Paradise Lounge, Dixon transferred there in early 2007. It was vibey, dancey, low-ceilinged, and beers were just $3. The crowd was mostly young artists like Dixon. “Anyone who went there absolutely can see that DNA in Beverly’s,” she says now. But gentrification was coming, and Sweet Paradise was bought by the owners of the rustic-chic British restaurant The Fat Radish, which had opened across the street.
The death of Sweet Paradise in 2010 made room for a new idea Dixon had. The art she and her peers were making would be seen a whole lot more if it were incorporated into a nightlife space. She pitched the idea to Chris Herity, a regular at Sweet Paradise who had been working at a coffee bar across the street, which was also closing. He was in.
Because they were doing this on a shoestring, Dixon knew she and her cofounders—Herity, Dan Sutti, and a few other financial partners—would need some kind of connection to get a lease, and thankfully, her old landlord at 21 Essex was willing to rent them the tiny ground-floor space. The build-out was almost complete when Hurricane Sandy hit at the end of 2012. Not only was New York pummeled with water, but city agencies were backlogged. After four months of delays, they finally opened in February 2013.
Justin Wilson moved to New York City from California for a design job at American Eagle not long after Beverly’s opened. He didn’t know anyone in his new city, but he was drawn to the bar’s now famous purplish-pink glow. “You could just tell this place aesthetically looked cool from the outside,” he says. They were playing deep cuts of ’80s soul music. He sat at the bar and struck up an easy conversation with the bartender. He quickly became a regular, and is now a partner with Dixon for the 297 Grand Street iteration, along with Gabe Schulman and Abiola Fasehun.
“There were so many moments that I’ve had at Beverly’s that were cathartic,” he says. Trump’s first presidential win, for example: “I remember it went from being like We’re going to party to a fucking funeral.”
Events at the original Beverly’s, whether it was a DJ set, a birthday party, or an art opening, were popular among the skater and fashion crowds in addition to artists. “People would just show up because it was the local watering hole,” says Edward Salas, a sculpture artist who started bartending there in 2016 and now manages bookings for the new space.
But in 2020, the Beverly’s Essex Street space went the way of so many other small businesses during COVID. The margins were already slim, and they couldn’t stay open if operating at full capacity wasn’t possible. On July 1, they announced that 21 Essex would close.
Beverly’s found a temporary home at 5 Eldridge Street, a tiny space in a building in Chinatown that they occupied from 2021 to 2023. After scraping together the money for the lease and a hefty renovation, they started hosting “speakeasy-style events on Friday nights where people would just pay $20 and we would put a punch out. And they were inside of these insanely immersive exhibitions that were absolutely stunning,” Dixon says.
The first time Lemaitre, the curator, interacted with Beverly’s was at the Eldridge location, and right away she was struck by the ease of community involvement. “That’s something that was really interesting to me, because as a curator I’ve felt a little challenged by the way art spaces can be closed-minded to how the general public might engage with experimental work,” she says. “Without the stigma of the art space, you get something that’s pretty magical in terms of their ability to connect with the work.”
While it felt great to gather people again, Dixon knew the Eldridge space wasn’t meant to last, and set about hunting for a more permanent perch. She wanted something on a commercial street, so they wouldn’t have to worry about noise complaints, and far enough away from the heart of Dimes Square, where the vibe leans more reservation-at-the-natural-wine-bar than beer-and-shot-combo these days.
The spot on Grand Street fit the bill, but the work wasn’t over once they signed the, gulp, 10-year lease. “In order to get a new liquor license, you have to spend weekend after weekend literally standing on the corner, asking people to sign things and write letters showing community support,” Dixon explains. “In the neighborhood where I’ve lived for 21 years and where Beverly’s is and where I make all my artwork, it is mixed with Chinatown. And it’s really important to do outreach to every kind of person who is living in your neighborhood. And what was really amazing this time around, doing it for 297 Grand, people were pretty unanimously like, Thank God Beverly’s is coming back.”
It is, however, coming back to a changed moment. Gen Z is reportedly drinking less. Nightlife can feel dominated by fleeting events that want your RSVP on Partiful first. “It’s a lot more challenging to have a 10-year lease than a three-day pop-up,” says Wilson, the new partner. But he and Dixon are betting that there is still value in rooting down and building a sustainable model.
So far, it’s working. “It’s still serving artists and the art world,” says Salas. A big part of that is the curatorial vision, led by Dixon. “She’ll give people a chance before they’re vetted by anyone.” Many have gone on to show in blue-chip galleries and museums.
This month, coinciding with the one-year mark, there is an exhibition, titled “Nanna,” of video, ceramic, painting, photography, and textile work by artists Mollie McKinley, Stina Puotinen, and Alex Schmidt. Recent events in the space include Supper Social, a “casual soiree for the emerging art world” organized by independent curator Lauren Hirshfield; and a “big sandwich” collaboration with Regina’s Grocery, where a six-foot-long sub was served beneath a painted simulacrum by Nicole Mouriño.
More events and parties and art shows are in the works. Beverly’s will be in Miami for Untitled Art Fair in December, and back at Material in Mexico City next February. In the spring, for the 13th anniversary, they’ll hold a big fundraiser party somewhere offsite. And Dixon herself has several shows in 2026, including at New York galleries Trotter and Sholer and Underdonk.
“I’m often thinking about how important social spaces are in times of upheaval, when things are breaking,” Dixon says. “I’m a kid who moved into the shadow of the Twin Towers in the early aughts.” She saw how having a place to gather made living in a frenetic place like New York sustainable. That’s why opening a new physical space for Beverly’s was so important to her; people need a place to go.
“It truly has changed my life as an artist in New York,” says Carlos Rosales-Silva, a longtime member of the Beverly’s orbit. “And I think it really is truly just being in community with this lovely group of weirdos.”