Photo: Courtesy of Nowadays, via NYC Tourism
Nowadays
Free-by-day courtyard, warehouse dance floor by night, run by Mister Saturday Night.
Published
Reasons to check it out
- Outdoor courtyard at 56-06 Cooper Avenue is free most days (Sundays excepted), with the indoor warehouse room running parties Thursday through Sunday.
- Founded by Eamon Harkin and Justin Carter, the pair behind Mister Saturday Night and its daytime sibling Mister Sunday, which now runs out of Nowadays' yard.
- Zumbador, the on-site Mexican kitchen, keeps the picnic tables fed late into the dancing.
“A club that treats its parking-lot-sized yard as seriously as its sound system is rarer than it should be — that's the actual pitch here, not the DJ booking.”
— STEFAN, byline
Nowadays sits right on the Ridgewood-Bushwick line, and the split in its own name describes the place: a fenced outdoor courtyard strung with picnic tables and games, and a 5,000-square-foot indoor warehouse room next to it. Most places pick one register and run it into the ground. Nowadays runs both, on the same footprint, often on the same day.
Eamon Harkin and Justin Carter — the pair behind Mister Saturday Night, New York's longest-running roving day-into-night party — opened the venue in 2016 and have run it since. Their own daytime series, Mister Sunday, now lives permanently in Nowadays' yard, which is part of why Sunday is the one day the outdoor space actually charges admission instead of staying free.
What a visit actually looks like
The outdoor courtyard runs Thursday through Sunday and is free to enter every day except Sunday, per the official hours page. The indoor room turns into a club Thursday, Friday and Saturday after 10pm, with a cover that UGC pricing and review mentions put in the $20-25 range most nights — The Infatuation's review calls it "a New York City rite of passage," and its April 2025 writeup still describes the exact split (yard by day, room by night) that holds true this year. Drinks run mid-to-high for a Queens dive but not out of line for a full sound system — beer around $10, cocktails from $11 up, per UGC price mentions.
Zumbador, the venue's Mexican kitchen, serves food at the picnic tables late into the night, which matters more than it sounds like it should at a club this size — there's a real reason to arrive at 6pm and still be there at 1am.
The door has a reputation, and it's a real one
A recurring thread on r/avesNYC, titled "Nowadays: Getting Vibed Check at the Door," collects accounts from attendees who felt door staff made snap judgments on who got in — not a single complaint but a pattern that shows up again in a newer thread from four months ago describing Nowadays as "a solid gay club moment" that "usually has a cover" and a door worth planning around. Treat it as testimony, not gospel: plenty of the same thread's replies describe getting in fine on a slower night. But it's consistent enough, across posts a year apart, to be worth knowing before you queue.
Sunday mornings are the venue's own institution — Mister Sunday regulars talk about catching sets into the double digits of the morning, DJs included, on into the following afternoon. If the goal is the daytime version of Nowadays rather than the late-night club, that's the day to show up.
Ridgewood's nightlife scene keeps expanding around venues like this one; anyone building out a night here should also check Monkey Thief across the river in Hell's Kitchen for a very different, cocktail-first register on the same city's map.
Sources: Nowadays — official site (hours & location), The Infatuation — Nowadays review, NYC Tourism — Nowadays, Bushwick Nightlife, Time Out New York — Indoors at Nowadays, Yelp — Nowadays, 56-06 Cooper Ave, Instagram — @nowadaysnyc, Reddit r/avesNYC — "Nowadays: Getting Vibed Check at the Door"
