Bleecker Street between Elizabeth and Bowery is where NoHo quietly turns into Nolita, a stretch of low brick buildings and narrow bar fronts fed by the Broadway-Lafayette and Bleecker Street subway stops. It's the kind of block a mezcal bar could disappear into on purpose. Ghost Donkey did exactly that for eight years at number 4 — and it has now closed for good, which changes where anyone searching for a mezcal bar near here should actually go.
Karpo tracks whether The Cabinet Mezcal Bar on Eldridge has room tonight and flags if a new concept has quietly taken over the old Ghost Donkey address on Bleecker.
Bleecker Street's short walk from NoHo into Nolita
This stretch of Bleecker Street, between Elizabeth Street and Bowery, is built from low nineteenth-century brick with restaurant and bar frontages rather than the taller commercial buildings a few blocks north. It's a walkable, low-scale nightlife corridor, not a strip built around big signage, and it sits at the point where NoHo tips into Nolita without any obvious line on the pavement. Most people arrive on foot from the Broadway-Lafayette or Bleecker Street subway stations, and the density of small-plate restaurants and boutique retail nearby keeps evening foot traffic steady rather than seasonal.
That geography is exactly why a small mezcal bar could tuck itself into number 4, sharing a wall and an interior doorway with the restaurant next door, and still fill up most nights. The block rewards discovery over signage — narrow frontages, shared interiors, a scale that suits a bar you find rather than a bar you're pointed toward.
What actually closed here
The bar in question was Ghost Donkey, a mezcal and tequila cocktail room that opened in 2016 from AvroKO Hospitality Group, reachable through its own entrance on Bleecker Street or through an interior door from the neighbouring restaurant, Saxon + Parole. It has since closed permanently at this address. Multiple independent listings, including major review platforms, mark it as closed, and the brand's own website lists the New York location as currently closed while sister locations keep operating in Las Vegas, Denver, Phoenix, Omaha, Chicago, Dallas and Auckland.
The exact closure date isn't confirmed, so treat any older listing that still shows it as open with caution. It's also unconfirmed whether a new tenant has taken the 4 Bleecker Street space or whether it's sitting empty — worth confirming directly with the landlord or with AvroKO if the physical address matters to you as much as the concept did.
What used to fill the red-lit room
The room itself was small and defined by strands of red light hanging from the ceiling, with a white donkey mascot and agave-plant motifs worked into the decor and a narrow sliver bar set as the visual centre of the space. Some cocktails arrived in ceramic donkey-shaped cups, and the menu leaned on mezcal alongside Nicaraguan rum and tiger-nut horchata. The signature dish was a plate of truffle nachos finished with a three-cheese sauce and fresh black truffle, and the bar won Imbibe's 'Best Cocktail Bar of the Year' in 2020. Cocktails at the time ran roughly $14 to $18, with the two-person El Burro Fantasma priced near $26 — figures worth treating as historical rather than current.
Part of the draw was a second entrance not on Bleecker Street at all, which gave the place a speakeasy feel regulars used to mention. Groups were often pointed toward a small run of couches at the back, the only lounge seating in the room. None of that is verifiable anymore — there's no current best hour, best seat, or off-list order to report, because the room these tips described no longer exists.
The nearest agave-focused room now
The closest confirmed alternative in the surrounding downtown area is The Cabinet Mezcal Bar at 217 Eldridge Street. It's an agave-focused bar in the same general mould — mezcal and tequila built around cocktails rather than a full dinner menu — and it sits within easy walking distance of the old Ghost Donkey address, roughly ten minutes east through the Bowery and into the Lower East Side edge.
It's worth being precise about geography here: Eldridge Street sits just east of Nolita as the neighbourhood is strictly drawn, closer to the Lower East Side line than to Elizabeth or Mott Street. Anyone searching specifically for something inside Nolita's boundary should treat this as the nearest option rather than an in-neighbourhood one, and confirm current hours and menu before making the walk, since neither has been independently reconfirmed here.
Where the neighbourhood line actually falls
Ghost Donkey's own address, 4 Bleecker Street, sat in NoHo rather than Nolita in the first place, despite how often the two names get used loosely for this pocket of downtown Manhattan. Nolita's commonly understood boundary runs along Mott, Mulberry, and Elizabeth Streets south of Houston, while NoHo sits north and west of Bowery around Bleecker and Bond. The two neighbourhoods blur into each other on foot, and most people crossing between them wouldn't notice a boundary at all.
That blur matters less for a night out than it does for search results. If the aim is a bar inside Nolita specifically, the honest answer right now is that there isn't a direct one-to-one replacement sitting inside those exact blocks — the nearest confirmed agave bar is a short walk east, not a few doors down.
What to confirm before you make the trip
Two things are worth checking rather than assuming. First, whether a new bar or restaurant has opened in the old Ghost Donkey space at 4 Bleecker Street — that's a question for the landlord or AvroKO directly, since no replacement concept has been publicly confirmed there. Second, whether The Cabinet's hours and menu still hold on the night you're planning to go, since agave-focused bars in this part of downtown tend to adjust hours seasonally.
Neither of these is guesswork you need to do yourself. It's the kind of small, current detail that's easy to get wrong from an old listing and easy to confirm with a quick check before you leave the house.
Practical notes
The former Ghost Donkey site sits at 4 Bleecker Street, NoHo, on the block between Elizabeth Street and Bowery, a short walk from the Broadway-Lafayette and Bleecker Street subway stations. That location is permanently closed, and no replacement tenant has been confirmed. The nearest agave-focused alternative, The Cabinet Mezcal Bar, is at 217 Eldridge Street, just east of Nolita proper toward the Lower East Side, roughly a ten-minute walk from the old address. Treat hours, menu, and pricing at either location as unconfirmed until checked on the day — bars in this stretch of downtown Manhattan tend to run evening-into-late-night hours, typically opening around 5pm, but this should be verified before you go.
Tags: #MezcalBarNearMe #NolitaNightlife #NoHoBars #GhostDonkeyClosed #AgaveCocktails #DowntownManhattanBars #EldridgeStreet #BleeckerStreet #NYCCocktailBars #MezcalNYC #NolitaBoundary #NYCBarsAndNights #TequilaAndMezcal #LowerEastSideBars
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Ask Karpo first
Wondering whether the old Ghost Donkey space on Bleecker has reopened as something new, or whether The Cabinet on Eldridge has room tonight? Ask Karpo for the current status of both before you plan the walk.
