Our Story
The Most Supportive Room in Town
There are piano bars, dueling piano bars and karaoke bars. Here at Sid Gold’s Request Room, we’ve taken the best ideas from these places, and put them into one fresh concept: a piano karaoke bar. It’s an experience that is familiar but with some very particular differences.
We call ourselves “The Most Supportive Room in Town,” and it’s a big difference from a traditional karaoke bar. Instead of a screen with lyrics, you’ve got a person who will match your pace, help you out if you get a little lost on the tune and just generally help you look like a star while you’re on our stage. We’re trying to give everybody that little taste of fame up on the mic with the audience under your sway.
Sid Gold’s Request Room is a contemporary take on the classic piano bar created by Paul Devitt and Joe McGinty. Divided into two rooms guests can slide up to the marble topped bar up front surrounded by cocktail memorabilia or grab a stool at the Baldwin piano bar in the back. An evening at Sid Gold’s is like going to a house party and the host has a baby grand in his living room. Unlike traditional piano bars the music leans more toward pop, rock, soul and even some punk (yes, you can play punk on piano). Guests are encouraged to request songs, take the mic and lead the crowd in a sing-a-long of their favorite tunes.
Paul Devitt is the founding partner of the iconic Beauty Bar which celebrated it’s twenty year anniversary in 2015. Beauty Bar became a small chain around the country with ten outposts at one time. Additionally Devitt created other fondly remembered hot spots including Barmacy and Coral Room in NYC, Star Shoes and Tokio in LA, and Silk City in Philadelphia.
Joe McGinty started the Loser’s Lounge in 1994, a live band tribute night performed six weekends a year in various venues over the years in New York, which currently resides at Joe’s Pub. McGinty was also a member of the Psychedelic Furs for five years.
