Cake Shop Bar / Live Music Venue / Pastry Shop

Lower East Side, New York –

There’s no better proof that New York is the city that never sleeps than the uber-cool, slightly schizophrenic Cake Shop, a round-the-clock upstairs vegan bakery café by day and indie/hipster basement concert space by night.

As famous for its chocolate cupcakes as for its cheap cans of Rolling Rock, the versatile venue also houses a record shop selling an eclectic mix of music from rare soul 45s to 80s rock records, as well as records from their own music label, Capeshok.

By day, the café’s free Wi-Fi draws Lower East Side freelance writers and designers who find the orange faux-wood paneling and big tables – not to mention the endless supply of quality coffee and legendary sweets – conducive to working.

Once the bar opens at 5pm, the vibe totally changes as underground music lovers follow the mint-green staircase down to a long, narrow, and dimly-lit lair whose twinkling Christmas lights and red tinsel cast an intimate glow over the artsy types and hipsters dancing around the tiny stage or squeezing in by the bar to refuel on those cheap cans of beer and equally cheap hard liquor.

Seating is sparse and difficult to find, but as long as the music is playing, the denizens of Cake Shop’s nighttime party scene are much too busy rocking to the beat of the incredibly loud indie bands to even think of sitting down.