Where to Catch Up With Friends in NYC

Catching up with a friend over drinks is actually pretty hard.

The bar is loud. You're side by side instead of face-to-face. There is always a reason to leave -- another place, a last round, the next thing. You spend two hours next to each other and leave not quite sure you caught up at all.

The bathhouse solves this problem completely. You are in robes. You are not going anywhere. Time expands. The conversation goes somewhere real.

The Places

Lore Bathing Club / 676 Broadway, SoHo

Lore is the best place in the city to actually catch up with someone. The ritual of heat and cold gives you a structure that loosens the conversation. You are not at a table, looking at menus. You are side by side in the heat, or face-to-face in the rest area, and the usual social scaffolding has been removed. People say things in the sauna they don't say over cocktails. The heat removes the performative quality. You are just two people. This is what real catching up looks like.

The Thread

The best places to catch up are the ones where time expands instead of contracts. Where there is no next thing pulling you forward. Where you can say the long thing instead of the efficient thing.

Lore is at 676 Broadway. Bring the friend you haven't really talked to in a while.