There’s a new gay lounge on everyone’s lips. Can you keep a Secret?
By Brandon Voss
Weekly gay parties in New York City come and go, but a spankin’ new boy bar certainly calls for a toast.
On April 28 co-owners Ernest Gonzalez and Scott Siler revealed their Secret, a sexy space on 29th Street near 11th Avenue that’s already attracting quality cuties from Hell’s Kitchen to Chelsea. “It’s the kind of place you’d meet your boyfriend, more so than your typical pick-up joint,” Gonzalez says. “It’s like a ‘Cheers.’” Despite no advertising, Sams and Woodys have been swarming the hot spot thanks to good ol’ fashioned word of mouth. “The more secret we kept it, the more special people felt. You know gays — everyone wants to be in-the-know.”
As former co-owners of hell in the Meatpacking District, Gonzalez and Siler devastated gay lounge lizards when they sold their popular crimson-hued haunt late last year. “The neighborhood was becoming kind of funny,” Gonzalez says. “We were getting a lot of the overflow from the nearby straight clubs, people who couldn’t get into PM, Lotus, and so on. The crowd was changing, and we felt it was time to make a move and start something fresh and new.”
Giving the decor a tasteful French boudoir feel, the duo found inspiration for Secret’s moniker while “doing research” in Europe. “We went to one place, Nomads in Amsterdam, that was so secretive we couldn’t even find it,” Gonzalez recalls, “until some drag queen slid a little door open like at a speakeasy!”
Like hell before it, the more accessible Secret consistently welcomes a healthy amount of fruit flies, straight buds, and even supportive family members of the queer community. “I’m always hearing something like, ‘This is my brother’s first gay bar,” Gonzalez shares, a phenomenon he attributes to having no go-go boys or surprises. “There’s a comforting familiarity at Secret. The atmosphere is non-threatening and relaxed. It’s a good representation of what gay men should be.”
And when the boyfriends of nine years aren’t recuperating and recharging at their Red Hook country house, “doing the upstate gay thing,” you’ll likely find Gonzalez and Siler (who also own Chelsea coffeeshop Big Cup) drinking with buddies right beside you at Secret’s bar, enjoying upbeat pop music and a signature cocktail list of pink drinks and Brazilian specialties. Sometimes you just wanna go where everybody knows your name. Secret, 525 W. 29th St.
HX, May 2005.