One day, while walking down West 10th Street, I saw a line of people forming on the sidewalk. Strange as it is to say in a place as densely populated as New York City, seeing quite so many people was unusual: West 10th is a quiet West Village block, with tourists preferring to mill about the luxury stores lining Bleecker Street, or the many restaurants on Hudson. I thought it might be a running club gathering, or a stoop sale. (Always stop by a stoop sale.)
I did not expect it to be for a party store.
But that was before I knew about Big Night—the impeccably curated store that somehow has exactly what you need to host, and then some. There are shelves stocked with olive oil, artisanal jams, and tinned fish, glasses by Sophie Lou Jacobsen, and martini cocktail napkins by Atelier Saucier. Taper candles hang by the dozen from the wall, as do cutting boards and pasta drainers—perfect for the boxes of Rubirosa lumache that sit near a fridge full of Nom Wah frozen dumplings. (Don’t worry, there are also bottles of Flamingo Estate’s Roma Heirloom Tomato Dish Soap to help with clean-up afterwards.)
Founder Katherine Lewin came up with the concept for Big Night after realizing that she and her friends loved the idea of hosting…but were also intimidated by it. “People associate dinner parties with seated dinners, where things are on the table at the right time and everyone’s seated nicely using their matching plates,” she says. Lewin, a former editor at The Infatuation, knew that wasn’t strictly realistic: some of her favorite evenings had unfolded over paper cups, mismatched plates, and a pasta dish made on the fly. Why were people made to feel that everything had to be just right?
