Bad news for New York's members' clubs.
San Vicente Bungalows is coming for the crown.
Good morning everyone. Today’s letter is available for everyone to read because it’s sponsored by LA-based women’s health company, Perelel.
Today’s letter includes:
Some relief for those who are waiting in suspense for New York’s San Vicente Bungalows location to open
The Miu Miu frames on every influencer’s face
Great news for Apollo employees who also dine at Sag Harbor Tavern!
The Perelel team reached out to me about working together at the end of last year. I had heard of them several times because they have a great podcast marketing strategy, and I’ve also seen the matte sachets of their supplements in friends’ medicine cabinets (I’m nosy) and suitcases when we travel together. Last April, Feed Me covered Perelel’s Series A – “If I was watching fragrance last year, I’m watching femtech and femcare this year – more egg freezing, more hormone regulation, more products to make motherhood easier.” – so I was excited to hear that their team was interested in a Guest Lecture.
Perelel is revolutionizing women’s health by promoting radical body literacy and offering stage-specific, medically-backed hormonal and reproductive support. Perelel, an OB/GYN-founded brand, offers targeted nutrition and vitamin routines for every phase of a woman’s hormonal journey—from menarche to perimenopause—with a focus on fertility, pregnancy, postpartum, and specific conditions like PCOS. No, I’m not pregnant, but I hope to be one day.
Launched in 2020, the founders bootstrapped their way to building their business with support from family and friends. Despite a limited marketing budget, Perelel quickly resonated with consumers, achieving product-market fit and establishing itself as a leader in women’s health. Recently, the brand has made waves with bold advocacy efforts aimed at closing the women’s health research gap. I will definitely be asking about their packaging and copy decisions (excellent).
Here’s a Feed Me first: this weekend’s Guest Lecture is with three founders.
This is your chance to ask Alex Taylor, Victoria Thain Gioia (co-founders and co-CEO’s), and Dr. Bayati (medical co-founder) anything about launching a bootstrapped business, building a brand in a competitive and stigmatized category, leveraging advocacy to drive meaningful change—or dive into women’s health topics, including supplementation and stage-specific hormonal support, with Dr. Bayati’s expert guidance as a practicing holistic OB/GYN. This Guest Lecture is open to all readers — not just paid — thanks to Perelel.
📱 Reminder that the Feed Me Tip Hotline is open for (anonymous) texts and voicemails: (646) 494-3916 📱
There are days where I wonder if San Vicente Bungalows New York is just a fantasy in all of our heads. But this morning, I got a scoop on what’s going on over in the former home of our beloved Jane Hotel taxidermy. Last year, while reporting on a story about member’s clubs for GQ, I found out that there was a 10,000-person waitlist for the New York location of SVB, even though nobody has seen it yet. Many of my friends are members of the LA location, which grants them membership to the New York location when it eventually opens. If Chez Margaux is for dinner, and Casa Cipriani is for drinking, San Vicente sounds like it will be a very chic problem for both of them (everyone keeps telling me how they are excited to dance there). At the end of last year, The New York Times published a story about Jeff Klein (who also runs The Sunset Tower) who runs San Vicente Bungalows. What many people didn’t pick up on was a single line about the New York opening date — “February”. Now here’s some drama: apparently the opening party for the club is going to be February 14th… for an SNL party. Plus-1’s aren’t allowed, which people are annoyed about since it’s Valentine’s Day. I emailed Jeff Klein this morning, who told me that the official opening would be, “more like March now.” When I asked about the SNL party, “no comment.” I’m jealous of everyone who gets a first look at what Rose Uniacke has done with the place, but as long as I can get a freezing white Negroni on that roof this June, I won’t complain.
Speaking of Valentine’s Day (28 days away)…
is working on a list of where to go in New York for dinner, whether you’re in a relationship, on the rocks, or single.Gen Z wants to return to the office… or at least dress like it. Lane Florsheim wrote about the “corporate fetish,” “office siren” and “corpcore” looks that have been proliferating women’s fashion for the past year. The democratization of office style is a little funny because it’s so heavily influencer by girlboss culture, but I don’t mind people getting interested in tailoring and looking professional. I gave a quote for the story about how many influencers I know are really interested in “being on panels” as a marker of success.
Sephora debuted a new series about how pop stars (Chappell Roan, Victoria Monét, Becky G) do their makeup. Why they decided to launch this on Hulu instead of YouTube is beyond me.
This morning, Julia Moskin reported that Billy Durney (Hometown Bar-B-Que and Red Hook Tavern) will open a fine-dining restaurant. The new restaurant will be in 9W57 (owned by an exceptionally eccentric New York real estate scion), whose tenants include Apollo Global Management, Coatue and Chanel. A reader emailed me this morning that, “The interesting bit that’s buried in Moskin’s piece is that Kent Hospitality Group has become a ‘major investor’ in Durney’s business. I get the sense that this might be the first such ‘strategic investment’ on the part of Kent Hospitality Group and its backers at the private equity fund SC Holdings.” SC Holdings’ portfolio includes Athletic Greens, the United Pickleball Association, and Supergoop. It'll be interesting to see if there will be more boutique restaurant group consolidation in the next couple of years...
Can someone at Miu Miu or LensCrafters let me know what the sales are looking like for their Havana frames? Every third TikTok I see has a woman wearing a pair.
Rodarte made Lucy Dacus a custom gown for the music video for her new single. Cool.
Puck is hiring a Growth Marketing Copywriter with emotional intelligence 👀 Part of the job description reads, “To best perform in this job you will demonstrate high EQ with the ability to execute a vision through consensus building, negotiation, and data-driven persuasion.”
Despite being on the market for years, the FDA just officially authorized the sale of Zyn this week. I’ve been covering Zyn and competing brands in the nicotine pouch space for the last year (in fact, in this month’s GQ, you will find six pages of reporting on Zyn, attached to my byline). I’m interested in the culture surrounding the drug, but Zyn is also my first foray into nicotine — aside from smoking a cigarette at a party to keep myself off of my phone or staring at a wall. Lucy Nicotine founder John Coogan (who also co-founded Soylent) posted an excellent 20-minute explainer about the FDA news — “I cannot express how big a moment this is for public health.”
I’m listening to this:
“To best perform in this job you will demonstrate high EQ with the ability to execute a vision through consensus building, negotiation, and data-driven persuasion.” - code for terrible workplace and/or persnickety boss for this role?
Not an influencer but yes to being on panels. The LinkedIn banner photo of being on a panel is a lesser, more accessible flex that one of being a talking head on TV. I'm seeing it a lot.