NEW YORK — The Playboy Club will return to the Big Apple later this year.
Playboy Enterprises Inc. has chosen a club location at the future Cachet Boutique New York hotel in Hell’s Kitchen, which is located on the west side of midtown Manhattan.
The new Playboy Club is set to open more than 30 years after the original Playboy Club in New York closed in 1986.
The latest iteration will feature a lounge, a restaurant, a game room and Playboy Bunnies (but with updated outfits.) It also will include a retail shop.
Construction is already in the works for the club, which will be on the first floor of the three-story Cachet Boutique, which previously was the gay-themed Out Hotel.
Other Playboy clubs are already operating in London, the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi and several locations in India. Another is set to open shortly in Shanghai.
XBIZ reported in late March that Playboy Enterprises planned to reintroduce Playboy Clubs to a number of U.S. cities.
Cooper Hefner, Playboy's chief creative officer, said the time was right for the Playboy Club to sprout up across the country because there’s “an obsession” with the 1950s-1970s among those aged 18 to 34.
“It excites me to imagine a time in the next few years of having Playboy Clubs back and having young and old react to the brand in ways that we haven't seen since the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s," Hefner said in March.
In other company news, Playboy Enterprises dumped its Playboy NOW app.
The advertising-supported lifestyle app was free in the Google Play store and iTunes App store.
The app was described by Playboy when it launched as a “guide to life, girls, style, humor and everything for today's guy, from the one and only Playboy.” It did not include nudity.
Nude shots were brought back to Playboy magazine starting with its March/April 2017 issue. It had excised them out for two years.
Playboy continues to operate its Playboy Classic app.
