“I have a solid six ideas every single day for a business,” said Ariel Arce, the owner of two Greenwich Village hot spots: Tokyo Record Bar and Air’s Champagne Parlor. “That’s not to say that all of those are good ideas. But because I’m naturally really impulsive, I just want to do it and I want to get people involved in it. And I shouldn’t do that.”
Still, Ms. Arce, 31, has not been able to limit herself. Two years after opening those first two venues, frequented by actors and comedians like Jake Gyllenhaal, Mandy Moore, Wanda Sykes and Olivia Wilde, she is opening two more restaurants this spring.
At Niche Niche, which opens next week at 43 Macdougal Street, a sommelier or some other beverage nerd will pick four wines per night, and food will be cooked to match. Customers pay $40 for the tasting and $40 for food.
In April, Special Club, a supper club that will feature live musicians, will open in the same building. (The building previously housed an Italian-American social club that was plagued by rumors about organized crime.)
“The history that’s there is incredible,” Ms. Arce said. But, she added, “if you had asked me if I’d ever open a business, let alone four, on Macdougal Street I would have laughed.” She used to think it was “the worst street in New York City,” full of “college kids and shot-and-beer bars.”
Ms. Arce prefers wine herself, specifically champagne. She became a bubbly evangelist after spending time at the Office, a famed Chicago speakeasy, and helped direct several champagne-focused ventures, including Riddling Widow, a subterranean bar in Greenwich Village. After its owner, Ravi DeRossi, decided to sell in 2016, she bought the bar out from under him.
She raised the $350,000 it took to do so from a Long Island couple, Ritu and Deepak Kapoor, whom she had charmed at the champagne bar. Ms. Kapoor, an interior designer by trade, helped design the spaces, while Mr. Kapoor, a physician with an M.B.A., looked over Ms. Arce’s business plan. (Her father, Billy Arce, helped her build the spaces, making the initial enterprise significantly cheaper.)
Ms. Arce with her father, Billy, who helped build the interiors of her new restaurants.CreditMarisa Chafetz for The New York Times
After her mother, Susanne Buckler, a still-life and fashion photographer, died last year, Ms. Arce took the next two months to grieve. That time profoundly changed the way she conceived of being a leader, teaching her “that I could be vulnerable but I could still be in charge.”
“Anybody who opens a business in some way likes to be in control,” she said. “That experience showed me that you can relinquish control and everything can still be O.K.”
Seeing that her ventures could function without her, Ms. Arce felt free to pursue the new businesses, which she is opening with her father and a silent partner.
Ms. Arce said that the ideas that animate her businesses can be traced back to her parents.
“They were polar opposites, but they knew how to throw an amazing party and have a great time and really celebrate life,” she said.
The celebratory air has seeped into Ms. Arce’s restaurants. At Tokyo Record Bar, where a mural of foxes performing a tea service is splashed on north-facing wall, guests select songs from the restaurant’s extensive vinyl collection. As diners eat communally, they bond over each other’s choices, creating an air of spontaneity within a streamlined, controlled process.
“I’m really interested in creating spaces where you can make your best friends at the table sitting next to you,” Ms. Arce said.
The key, for her, is to create a familial atmosphere. The name of the business that controls Niche Niche and Special Club — Bad Hair — is a tribute to her own family. “Bad Hair” was the password Ms. Buckler used for everything.
“I guess Ariel just adopted it,” her father said. “Ariel does things without telling me sometimes. I know why she did it. She likes to keep her mother involved, you know?”
