The Bitter End street view

The Bitter End is the most famous nightclub in New York City’s legendary Greenwich Village. But any night spot is merely wood, mortar and brick, in this case ‘red brick’. The building and the business needs a leader or captain to guide it and the Bitter End is lucky to have Paul Colby at the helm.

Paul Colby’s career is as legendary as the club he has managed and owned for almost thirty years. Starting as a song plugger for Benny Goodman’s record publishing company, Paul has gone onto work with Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington and Guy Lombardo, cutting his teeth in the entertainment business during the Golden Age of popular music.

As a prolific painter and designer, Paul, started the award winning Colby furniture Co. where he produced contemporary furniture that won acclaim in the New York Times, House Beautiful and Interior Design magazines. He created original pieces for Miles Davis, Cy Coleman, Tony Bennett and Diahann Carroll among others but the call of the entertainment world finally drew him back into the vibrant and rejuvenated Greenwich Village of the sixties and a new age in music and comedy. The place to be was the Bitter End.

In 1968 he was manager and booking agent and by 1974 he became the owner. He has owned the Bitter End for the last 22 years and in that time has transformed a small coffee house into one of the premiere entertainment hubs in New York. Piloting his club through every contemporary musical, social and cultural wave in America, Paul has elevated the status of a basement bistro into a fullfledged nightclub of world renown. From the days of ice cream sundaes and milk shakes to five course dinners and wine and cocktails, playing host to every important entertainer in the last thirty or more years, Paul has continued his unabated successstory.

Withstanding fads, generational changes and the fickleness of taste and sensibilities, Paul has adapted and thrived in one of the most difficult businesses in America. And he has done it without sacrificing the sense of class, professionalism and bottom line faith in great talent that has made both him and his legendary nightclub such mainstays in the cultural life of NewYork City.

A successful nightclub in New York City demands straight connections between heart and mind and guts. Along with Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, Kris Kristofferson, Carly Simon, Peter Paul and Mary and so many others, the Bitter End is fortunate to have discovered Paul Colby for its owner and guiding light. This great entertainment juggernaut couldn’t be in better hands.

Address: 147 Bleecker Street (between Thompson and LaGuardia)
New York City, NY 10012