Jean’s has never been particularly interested in behaving like a normal restaurant.
The NoHo hotspot known for its over-the-top antics has turned dinners into ragers and let guests ride motorcycles through the front doors. So perhaps it was only a matter of time before New York’s street vendors became part of the controlled chaos.
This weekend, designer bootleggers, who typically sell their knockoffs along Canal street, found themselves on the other side of the velvet rope at Jean’s latest edition of DOJOPOMODORO. At this notoriously rowdy late-night party, drinks eventually give way to bowls of pasta on a packed dance floor.
Videos from Saturday night show vendors hawking their counterfeits outside the restaurant as revelers headed in, with knockoff designer bags eventually making their way to the club downstairs.
“We built the place to be a never-ending wedding,” partner Max Chodorow previously told The Post. “A little bite, a little drink, a little dance.”
Jean’s opened in 2023 at 415 Lafayette Street, taking over the storied former Butter space and pairing a farm-to-table bistro upstairs with a notoriously exclusive nightclub downstairs. The restaurant was launched by Chodorow — son of veteran restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow — alongside Ashwin Deshmukh and quickly became one of downtown’s buzziest spots.
Jean’s is arguably just as well known for what happens after dinner: celebrity-filled parties, fashion events, and the crush of guests lining up to make their way to Jean’s downstairs, where a no-frills disco ball hangs over a crowded checkered dance floor.
“Jean’s is all about serving and celebrating the true essence of New York City,” Jean’s co-founder and founder of Volta, John Fiorentino wrote on X about the spectacle on Saturday night. “So we brought a few Canal Street vendors to set up in front of our doors and sling designer knockoffs to the people in line.”
“Dance floor was packed with proper counterfeit Louis and Prada all night,” he added.
DOJOPOMODORO, alongside Orson & Danya Zelikovsky, has twice taken the legendary Boom Boom and Soho Beach house during Art Basel. The pomodoro features tomatoes from Chodorow’s farm in New Hope, P.A..
Previous editions have featured Mona Matsuoka & DJ Ross-One, as well as Nicky Siano from Studio54 and Greg Wilson from the UK.
Olivia Salomone, both a regular at Jean’s and an occasional legal representative, goes out of her way to attend DOJOPOMODORO.
“This door isn’t guaranteed; my friends from Milan and Paris come in for it. I saw Jensen Huang at the door once. There is nothing else like it,” Salomone told The Post.
Pasta starts making its way through the crowd, DJs keep the room moving, and the line between restaurant and nightclub all but disappears.
“Go to the club that serves you pasta at 2 am,” one fan posted on TikTok.
That blurring of the lines is more or less the point at Jean’s.
“The most important thing to us is the mix. That’s New York,” a Jean’s team member previously told The Post. “Everyone leaves the Temu country clubs to rub up on strangers with us.”
Saturday’s Canal Street cameo took that ethos about as literally as possible — folding one of New York’s most recognizable sidewalk scenes into one of downtown’s most notoriously hard-partying rooms.
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