An unassuming tourist type at an unassuming football bar tells me this: "New York restaurants are crazy! There's a club in every basement!" I nod my head. He means RdV, the bass-thumping club below Bagatelle. "No," says the unassuming tourist, "We were in some East Village pizza restaurant or something!" Jesus, it can be tough keeping up with the NYC Jones. There seems to be tons of hidden gems that try to stay away from the people like me who can write about them, Twitter about them, Facebook about them, and ultimately ruin them. Some things are worth keeping a secret, but when the party is in the basement of Coffee Shop or some media lunch spot that regularly gets off on decent press, it's easy to broadcast. Some other things will remain a mystery, until I can fully understand if it's an actual basement party or simply a couple of bus boys getting high between shifts.

As the holidays near, it's fun to roll the dice on what former hotspot will have a revival, or what invitees may finally get a glimpse of the most exclusive space by way of special event invitation. This week alone the The Bowery Hotel had a major resurgence, proving it's a party player by hosting the annual Humane Society’s Cool vs. Cruel benefit, back-to-back with tonight's Art Rocks! event. Same with the six-thousand-foot "local hang'" -- The Ainsworth -- which was ground zero for Stylecaster's Short Films Premiere Party. Sienna and Savannah Miller hosted a dinner to celebrate their spring 2010 collection at the Royalton (not exactly the downtown scene we'd imagined for them). Party palaces also revive with extreme makeovers' the closed 105 Rivington space -- a splinter off of the Rivington Hotel -- is getting a redux. It will be called CV, and it had a little show-and-tell this past Tuesday. All in all, the holiday times bring a little nightlife cheer in the form of new beginnings at old places, reminding people how awesome some of our nighttime landmarks can be.

Jeff Zalaznick transitioned his career from mergers & acquisitions to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The editor-in-chief of AlwaysHungryNY.com and founder of DinePrivate.com was once a J.P. Morgan employee before finding his passion and his business partner, famed restaurateur Joe Bastianich. The native New Yorker talks about his newest online accommodation for private dining.

Nick Cohen is one of those brash mash-up open-format DJs that has the gals swooning and the guys envious of his skills. It all seems easy to an outsider, this modern DJ thing. Serrato technology can put every song you might ever want to hear on a laptop and tell you exactly how to thread those songs together; DJs use this technology to mix in songs from different genres, as they have to constantly find a new way to thrill the crowd. They can carry thousands of songs with them, and the open format set that most clubs now feature can seem repetitive. The great DJs bring smiles to pretty faces as they mix in Dolly Parton, James Brown, or Gang of Four with a song that has been enjoyed so often it needs to be twisted. Those DJs that are successful and have the looks and charisma -- the whole package -- can demand megabucks In a market that has become ultra-international. Tours are no longer the domain of the house heads, as the worldwide table/bottle service phenomena demands DJs that make you sway in place rather than hit a dancefloor. People don’t spend money on dancefloors, but they do at tables.

Once again, the landscape of nightlife is a'changing. Sometimes, you have to stir up the water to catch a few fish, which is exactly what happened to us. East Village Monday-night favorite Le Souk lost its liquor license, forcing patrons to take their business to Le Souk Harem, but it's the neighborhood that's the real loser. Wandering aimlessly in search of something new and good on Sunday night, we found a new party at White Slab Palace. Places we'd long since wrote off somehow hit the spot if not filled the void. An object lesson on wandering outside your comfort zone.

Being a partier used to be as simple as throwing on a clean tee and getting out the door. Now, it's work. The Jane was once our last great hope; it's now all but shuttered. Just when we feel we've found our new home, a place where -- if not everyone knows our name, at least they know our label -- it loses its license, lease, or cool. If we were lazy, we'd advise you to try the Boom Boom Room every single night of the week, but if on top of the world isn't really your scene, here's what's been moving and shaking amongst the movers and shakers this week. We'll be trying them out one by one, consumed with the determination to find our Beatrice Inn incarnate.

The town is going goo ga ga over The Standard Hotel's Boom Boom Room and, of course, that not a drag at all queen, Lady Gaga. Word comes to me from multiple (usually reliable) sources that the upper tiers of The Standard will have club legends, Nur Khan and Paul Sevigny on board after a few T's are crossed. I think it's two different spaces, but hey, it's only one cab ride. I could call them both and get a denial...so I'll wait for their phone calls and find the truth in their protests—although it does really makes sense as all parties involved would benefit from the fit. Paul has been looking for a place to hang his hat since The Beatrice took a beating and Nur just loves to be on top of the world. Paul has had marvelous success with his Tuesdays and Thursdays at Avenue so it seems he and Nur are at the top of their game right now. The Standard's excellent location and sublime views combined with the smart looks and staffing seems ideal.

Semu Namakajo, a.k.a. DJ Reach, is Manhattan’s very own household name when it comes to the world of nightclubs. Bringing his gift for musical mish-mashing to haunts across NYC, Vegas, the Hamptons, and Miami, Reach is best known for being one of the nicest dudes in the biz -- just ask any club owner in town. In a city where the sincere have dwindled down to a mere few, this New York native brings nothing but the realness in his music as well as his life. That’s because the music undoubtedly is his life.

Rob McKinley -- part of the team responsible for hotspots GoldBar, Cain Luxe, and Surf Lodge -- began his design-oriented career behind the scenes at fashion house heavy-hitters Tommy Hilfiger, Donna Karan, and Giorgio Armani. After a shift into nightlife, the GoldBar concept stemmed from McKinley's fictional idea of a European count obsessed with anything and everything gold. The golden boy met with us to discuss keeping his bar alive, the fall of the Meatpacking District, and those guys across the street at Southside.

How did GoldBar come about?
My partner told me about the space, and I told him that I had a concept which would work really well. For me, creatively, the idea was to create a bar inspired by some of the grand hotels in Europe -- Paris and Rome -- but without the hotel. I wanted it to have the old-fashioned, traditional style of service and the formality of those bars and then almost poke fun at it and make it overly decadent. It came into being when we picked the space and we had gold leaf everything as soon as you walked through the door. The skulls were inspired by the catacombs in Paris. Little by little, it came together while working with all the different artisans, fellow workers, and artists.

There's an exploding rock ‘n’ roll scene in New York City; bands are banging everywhere, and there are more than a few options every night for this vibrant community. I was at Bowery Electric last week for the Bloody Social gig and found a super-hot following of rock models and scenesters mixed with a crowd from the Max’s Kansas City era -- old-school rockers that I hadn’t seen in years were everywhere. Dave Delzio is making moves and is a force in this new rock social scene. He’s involved with the post-Snitch rock Mondays at Greenhouse -- which are absolutely kicking -- and is about to start a Wednesday night slated to run like the long-lasting weekly party at Marquee, which for me was the sole reason to be there. After talking about tattoos -- he gets his done over at North Star Tattoo by Becca Roach, and we decided that he's going to hook me up for my first ink job -- we managed to get in a quick chat about the projects he’s currently working on.