The best birthday venues in New York City

Whether you’re turning 25 or 85, sometimes a swanky Midtown dive bar isn’t the vibe for a birthday party. For a breath of fresh air, head across the bridge to Greenpoint to Milk and Roses. It’s as romantic and gentle as it sounds – an intimate, farmhouse setting with wall-to-wall bookshelves, a working fireplace, and a spacious garden. Celebrate among brick walls and rustic detailing, including antique chandeliers and reclaimed floors from the infamous Roseland Ballroom.

The entire venue can be rented for 150 guests indoors, or 204 including the ornate garden space. The outdoor area has a blue-green copper conservatory, which can be turned into a covered dance floor. For food, they cite an American cuisine with southern Italian influence, using ethically sourced ingredients, and you can accompany your meal with a selection of house wines and fresh cocktails.

The three-story pink townhouse that houses Tiny’s is like something out of a Wes Anderson film. Wedged between other classic 19th-century buildings, this Regency-era gem has since transformed into a family-run intimate dining space. The rustic, artistic spirit has remained intact: the ground floor restaurant has a wood-burning fireplace and brick walls, and the upstairs area has a copper bar for cocktails and snacks.

Tiny’s is indeed tiny, with a 60-person seated capacity for buyout, and even less for the compact bar space upstairs. It offers seated private dining with a set seasonal menu, and in this homey environment, it’ll feel just like a birthday dinner at home.

If birthday cake isn’t your thing, replace it with some of the city’s best croissants. Stepping into Maman, a café famous for its specialty drinks and Oprah’s favorite cookie, feels like a moment in the French countryside, if the French countryside inexplicably opened onto Hudson Square. Imagine it as Le Pain Quotidien’s more sophisticated cousin, who frequents the Hamptons on the weekends and studied abroad in college. Antique walnut tables and a signature blue-and-white porcelain motif make it a great backdrop for a pastry lover’s birthday celebration.

There are multiple locations across the city, including the SoHo flagship, but the Hudson Square location offers room for up to 100 standing guests and 40 seated, including a 22-person communal banquet table. A diverse food menu means you can host anything from a classic French lunch or an afternoon tea, and cake is also available with unique flavors like lavender or pistachio. To top it all off, you can send your guests home with packaged chocolate chip cookies.

Sure, your cramped NYC apartment probably can’t host all your friends for the Pinterest birthday dinner party of your dreams, but wait – there are other options. Dinner Party in Fort Greene gives you that intimate, intentional feeling, with everything from a changing handwritten set menu to mismatched vintage furniture and fixtures.

A full buyout (for a maximum of 22 guests) includes a custom four-course meal with beverage pairings, or choose the restaurant turn option to get the weekly prix fixe menu and a separate drink package. The cuisine is a mix of French, Italian, and Californian – developed from the roots of the six women who opened the restaurant together in 2021. As they proclaim, “Good company nourishes as well as good food does.”

Your friends will be confused when your invitation lists the party address as the 28th Street station, but it won’t be a mistake. Follow signs to the 1 Train and you’ll find yourself transported to what looks like the basement of a lush 80s motel: red lighting, palm trees, velvet furniture. This subterranean cocktail lounge turns into a discotheque after 10 pm, and the menu has unique offerings like vintage champagne and banana daiquiris. Go wild – your commute home will be a breeze.

La Noxe can accommodate 30-standing for private rental.

Chances are that if your 13-year-old self met your current self, there wouldn’t be much in common beyond a shared birthday. Young you, pimpled-faced and confused, lusting over genetically superior classmates in between marathon Call of Duty sessions. Old you, washed out and still confused, lusting over an ochre Le Cruset casserole dish in between the 3 $25 Negronis you allow yourself every Saturday just to keep the demons away.

Barcade has done the impossible: bridge the spirit of youth with the crippling alcohol dependency of adulthood. The Chelsea outlet brings a bewildering selection of arcade games and pinball tables to a classic turn-of-the-century Chelsea high-rise. There are too many titles to name here, but expect anyone who remembers the late 80s and early 90s to have a few Proustian moments. Think of it as an adult Chuck-E-Cheese, minus the terrifying animatronics.

Birthday party reservations are available for groups of 10 or more. The drinks lean towards indie American crafts, with exclusive beers on tap, with classic bar food to compliment.

Where the Anglosphere has "trying to find a needle in a haystack", Koreans have "looking for Kim in Seoul". Well, the good folks on everyone's favorite bisected peninsula need to make their way over to West 28th St. in Chelsea, where the name is literally on the door.

Ms. Kim’s happily bucks the trend that karaoke (read: Noraebang) in New York means sticky floors, windowless rooms, and drinks that taste like they’ve been mixed by a college student at a frat party, Instead, the birthday vibes here bring a range of VIP karaoke rooms (from 8-22 crooners) together with upmarket Japanese and Korean food, which is a pretty good match.

Drink packages are also available upon request, starting at $600.

Wythe Hotel is a sort of physical manifestation of the changing face of Brooklyn. The converted factory now figures as a waterfront hotel with unparalleled views over the East River. A sort of unapologetic testament to the aesthetics of urban industrial decline, their dedicated cellar bar proves a unique space to see in another year of existence.

The 85-person capacity bar and screening room is intimate and stylish, with the full-HD digital projector proving the perfect medium for you closest to, perhaps, display embarrassing photos of you in high resolution. Just a thought. There is also a vintage popcorn machine for those who think corn just isn’t popped how it used to be.

What comes to mind when you think of the 80’s? Shoulder pads? Bob Geldof? Reganomincs? It’s not all bad, we promise you.

Enter Motel No Tell stage left. A slice of 1980s Miami in the heart of New York’s East Village, the decor has been carefully curated to evoke a moment in time when houndstooth suits were a signifier of the zeitgeist. We’re talking disco balls, neon signage, and a box TV in the corner playing Casino on loop. It’s the closest thing you’ll get to time travel, and you can do it with a Pina Colada in your hand. Marty McFly could never.

For private birthday parties, this New York venue is available to rent for up to 180 guests. There also semi-private hire options available.

Ah, golf: the refuge of presidents, millionaires, and aspiring divorcee husbands. But what about the rest of us? What about the unwashed masses who think a birdie is found in an aviary and a bogey comes out of your nose?

Well, rejoice proletariat for crazy golf is here to give us a taste of achieving below-par. Swingers started across the pond, with its NYC outpost cropping up under the well-trodden sidewalks of NoMad. The transatlantic influence is immediately apparent with the theme resting on the quaint British seaside resorts (minus, we hope, the rain and drear). With three courses, six cocktail bars, and four street food vendors, you and up to 525 guests can be sure it’ll be a birthday to remember.