Bottoms Up! Interview with Clover Club Founder, Julie Reiner
The Park Slope resident talks about her trailblazing career, her new Saloon, and some of her favorite local spots
It’s not hard to find a fancy bar serving craft cocktails in New York City these days, but that was not always the case. Back in the early aughts, Park Slope resident, Julie Reiner, played a pivotal role in transforming the bar scene in NYC.
She founded pioneering NYC venues Flatiron Lounge (2003-2018), Pegu Club (2005-2020), Lani Kai (2010-2012), Brooklyn’s Clover Club (2008) and Leyenda (2015).
She also penned a book, The Craft Cocktail Party, launched Social Hour Cocktails (canned cocktails), rebooted the beloved Soho dive bar, Milady’s (2022), and judged battling bartenders on Netflix’s reality competition Drink Masters. This summer, Reiner and her team launched The Saloon, a private events space next door to their famed Clover Club in Carroll Gardens.
Originally from Honolulu, Hawaii, Reiner got her start as a cocktail waitress in Waikiki, serving tropical drinks to tourists. She attended Florida State University and studied communications. After graduating, she moved to San Francisco and worked in marketing, but that did not last long.
“I tried to get a real job…one that my parents thought was a real job,” she recalls. “When I went to San Francisco, I started this job where I was sitting at a desk and I was like, ‘this is so boring. This is definitely not what I want to do.’” Reiner worked as a bartender during college and “loved the action of being in restaurants and bars,” so she returned to that “trying to figure out what it was that I really wanted to do with my life.”
While in San Francisco, Reiner met her wife and business partner, Susan Fedroff. The couple moved to New York in 1998 so Fedroff could attend NYU grad school.