In case you don’t like faux underground restaurants in the West Village or hidden bars in phone booths on St. Mark’s Place, there’s a new bar for you somewhere in the Lower East Side. It’s called El Baño—and you and I are totally not invited to opening night!

In fact, we don’t even know where it is. The club’s Web site says “Our thought is, that if you’re supposed to know where we are, you know where we are.” They will mail you an uncut key, later giving you instructions as to which locksmith to visit. And once you find out, you have to fake going into a bodega bathroom to get to the actual club. I know—sounds classy!

Honestly, I can’t believe this is real. (Neither do a lot of people.) But for real, while there’s a part of me that is SO INSANELY CURIOUS AND I WANT TO GO TAKE ME TINSLEY MORTIMER, most of me hates this for being the kind of club that’s ruining nightlife.

I know, I know, I’ve only lived here a couple years. What do I know about nightlife? The same thing that everyone does—that artificial exclusivity policies like this lead to button-down-clad Newark businessmen paying their way in and stranding everyone else at the door because they can’t afford a table. And even if your club is “totally not like that,” no matter how tight you make your door because you confuse exclusivity for fun, douchebags will find their way in anyway.

So if you’re reading this and have a key to El Baño, by all means, have fun dancing the night and flushing your money away—if other “elite” clubs in New York are any indication, drinks will run you up to a couple dozen dollars. The rest of us will be having fun the old-fashioned way: with friends, cheap drinks, and no angry bouncers staring us down.

Photo: Flickr courtesy of futureshape