One of the East Village’s favorite party spots is currently gearing up to debut an exciting new sister concept.
Keybar is a well-established East Village bar that has been operating at 432 East 13th Street for nearly two decades. Owned by Atilla Draviczski (also known as DJ Atilla Da Hun) and Gyula Bertok, Keybar is a popular destination for house music fans and has cultivated a reputation as one of New York’s leading venues for House DJs, transforming from a traditional bar to a vibrant DJ lounge on weekends. Keybar has become especially popular among locals thanks to its “free shots for birthday parties” program, in which the bar matches your shot order with a free offering as long as you can prove that your birthday is within seven days.
Now, while Keybar has been slowly recovering from the many hits it took during the pandemic, the owners have acquired a brand new space to continue the core Keybar concept. Owners Draviczski and Bertok have just secured the lease for a new location at 208 Avenue A, on the corner of Avenue A and East 13th Street. The space formerly belonged to a Cafe Bene which permanently shut its doors earlier this year.
The new location offers about enough space to seat about 50 guests between the interior tables and 26-foot long bar, and the concept will feature a “pizza and grill menu, based on sausages.” Items on the menu include kielbasa and bratwurst, as well as Margherita and Naples-style pizzas. In their proposed menu, both the pizzas and the sausages will sell for $10 an item, which is a great deal in this writer’s opinion.
Bertok and Draviczski are currently in the process of acquiring a full liquor license for the space and will see the community board about their proposal later this month. For now, the team is proposing operating hours of 12:00 PM – 4:00 AM, every day, seven days a week. They are also proposing the use of a sidewalk cafe that will close daily at 10:00 PM. While these hours are identical to Keybar’s current operating hours on 13th street, they are still subject to change should the community board find issue with their proposal. While the space is still very early into development, you can follow Keybar on Instagram for further updates as the story progresses.
