At a new coffeeshop in Chelsea, the house specialty is a single shot — at love.
First Round’s On Me, which opened in late March, is looking to attract unattached New Yorkers and help them mix and mingle with free drinks, events, pool tables, communal seating and a personable staff who keep an eye out for any flirtations that edge into the uncomfortable.
“This is the first place I’ve ever been that’s specifically for single people, and that’s very cool,” said Danna Kahn, a 25-year-old podcast producer who lives on the Upper West Side and has visited the cafe twice.
“You know that every person here is single,” she told The Post. “They are going to be open to talking and meeting me.”
The cafe was opened by the team behind the First Round’s One Me dating app, which has 300,000 current users, roughly 50,000 of whom are in New York City. It dovetails with the app’s design, which forces users to set a time and a place for a date before they start chatting online, with the aim of avoiding the message-heavy flirtations and ghostings common to the bigger dating apps. (Users can, of course, still cancel a date after chatting on the app, if they so choose.)
Joe Feminella, 34, launched the app last year after being shocked by research that showed only one in 10,000 online dating matches across all dating apps led to live meetings.
“No wonder everyone hates dating apps,” he told The Post.
To make meeting up easier — and cheaper — app subscribers, who pay $24.99 a month, get unlimited free coffee at the cafe. Those not on the app enjoy relatively cheap beverages — $4 lattes, $2.50 drip coffees. There are also complimentary spiked seltzers on offer on occasion, and a liquor license is in the works so that the cafe can sell booze.
“We don’t want there to be any reason not to go on a date,” a barista told The Post.
Sujey Diaz, a nurse who lives near the cafe, is a fan of the coffeeshop and its approach.
“Trying to meet up with people you meet on an app never ever goes anywhere,” said the 41-year-old single. “Let’s all go to one space and talk in person. That way you can cut the BS and you know, make a connection with someone and go from there.”
The cafe is holding events, such as live podcast tapings and DJ nights, about twice a week. Many are free and some are reserved for app subscribers.
The space is designed to both celebrate and support the single life. A sign outside says, “Perfectly roasted like your ex in the group chat.” Inside, neon signs read “Talk less, date more,” and “Don’t just be dateable, be datable as f–k,” and there’s a wall where singles can write down their red flags. Some of those posted include broke, snores, is a man, mommy issues, road rage, and doesn’t like animals.
Janny White Lion, 30, who lives down the block and is a municipal employee, said he has been single for 10 years and had just given up on dating apps when he walked by the new cafe. Now he’s a regular, coming twice a week with his laptop.
“I was able to approach four girls in one day,” Lion said. “Do you know how many that is?”
Victoria Garcia, the cafe’s general manager, said she often sees customers flirting and exchanging numbers, while some offer encouragement to fellow singles.
“I heard one stranger say to another, ‘You are going to find someone really quickly. You are beautiful,’” she said.
The other day an older woman came in and told her that she needed to send her sons there.
“I said to her, ‘Oh, so they’re single,’” recounted Garcia. “She said, ‘No, no no, I don’t like their wives, so I need them to come to this cafe and meet other beautiful women.’”
