Openings: Zen Compound

What’s that we hear? Can it be? The pitter-patter of tiny backlashes? Your author certainly cannot even recall (though alcohol abuse may be partly to blame) a nightlife press release so vigorously decrying exclusivity as the one promoting San Francisco’s grandiose new “temple” of nighttime debauchery as Zen Compound. Based around his Temple nightclub and branding the entire space a “VIP room” (you’re all special!), DJ-owner Paul Hemming’s ZC is striving to merge Occidental decadence and Eastern consciousness into one chic, gloriously groovy and uplifting experience.

Its Prana restaurant serves up global fare culled from only sustainable agriculture, and the various partying spaces are designed to inspire spiritual elevation (drink yourself into an enlightened stupor!). Genuine Indian antiquities abound, and it even offers instantaneous era-shift—from the futuristic Destiny Lounge to the historically disposed Catacombs in the lower level. Now, if only Baghdad could get one of these.