Paul's Casablanca: The SoHo Club, Its Door and What to Wear

Paul's Casablanca is a door-only club at 305 Spring St in SoHo, opened in November 2016 by Paul Sevigny and Brian McPeck in the old Sway space, and open Wednesday to Sunday with the door from 10pm to 4am. There are no tickets and no published dress code: you get in at the door.

Since 2016

Paul's Casablanca opened in November 2016, run by DJ and nightlife figure Paul Sevigny with Brian McPeck as managing partner. It took over the former Sway, a Moroccan-decorated bar where Sevigny had hosted a cult Smiths night in the early 2000s, and kept the Moroccan look. From the street, look for the flags hanging over Spring Street.

Theme nights

From the start, each night at Paul's had its own sound, from hip-hop to rock and roll, according to W Magazine's opening coverage in 2016. Today the best-known is Paul's Dolls, a house party on Wednesday nights with its own Instagram. The venue doesn't publish a calendar, so the theme of a given night is something to ask about.

How the door works

Paul's Casablanca sells no tickets: the door, from 10pm, is the whole process. W Magazine's 2016 opening story already joked about the guests who'd go “if they can get in.” Arrive in a small group, at a sensible hour, and be ready for a no on a full night.

What to wear

Paul's doesn't publish a dress code, and we haven't found a written one anywhere. What we can say is that this is a downtown door, not a Chelsea table club: our NYC dress code guide covers what Manhattan doors usually expect.

Similar clubs nearby

Jean's on Lafayette Street is the other famously hard downtown door. SOB's, a few blocks away on Varick Street, is the Latin, Caribbean and hip-hop institution of the area.

· NoHoSee Jean's →

Hip-hop, R&B, Latin, African, Caribbean, Haitian, Brazilian and South Asian · Hudson SquareSee SOB's →