How Williamsburg’s Lighthouse Quietly Became the Bar Industry’s Hangout
When I pull up to Lighthouse, sibling owners Assaf and Naama Tamir are deep in their usual pre-event choreography. The restaurant has a full buyout the next day, one of about 30 they host every year, and the place is humming. Assaf is in the kitchen working through menu tweaks with the team; Naama stands at a dining-room table, calmly braiding challah rolls and assembling hors d’oeuvres with the kind of practiced ease that suggests she’s been doing this forever.
A full month of the restaurant’s calendar disappears each year to buyouts alone — birthdays, engagement parties, brand dinners, industry celebrations, many of them from bartenders, beverage directors, and spirits reps. The rest of the time, Lighthouse humbly goes about being one of the city’s most beloved, least-publicized industry hangouts.
I first learned about Lighthouse in 2020 from a former colleague, who at the time worked at Rémy Martin and was hosting a dinner there. I knew bartenders liked it — it came up often as a go-to brunch spot after a late shift, or a place to decompress on a night off — but I didn’t yet understand how deeply embedded Lighthouse was in the fabric of the drinks community.
For nearly 15 years, the restaurant has quietly served as a gathering place for “members of the trade.” Yet the mainstream press has barely touched it. It isn’t gatekept — the opposite, actually — but it somehow continues to fly under the radar. I wanted to understand that alchemy: how the restaurant became a place where, as bartender and beverage director Jen Marshall says, “you will run into someone you know, dispense with the industry formalities, and just have a glass of orange wine and some really good bread.” To her, that’s the magic: “It’s the place where you can sorta take off your industry persona when you are inside, yet still be around your industry friends. That’s what makes it so special.”
Credit: Naama Tamir
Opening Lighthouse
Lighthouse opened in 2011 on the corner of Borinquen Place in Williamsburg. Naama and Assaf pooled the savings they’d earned working in bars and restaurants for over a decade to take over what had been an off-the-books club called Lucky 7. The discovery was pure serendipity.
“We found the space in a funny way,” Naama tells me. “I had recently read an article about ways to prevent Alzheimer’s, and one of them was taking different routes home. I shared this with my brother and one day he took a route that brought him by the space that would become Lighthouse. At the time it was sort of functioning as an illegal club called Lucky 7. We were always charmed by corner spots, and although it looked incredibly different than it does now, we knew it had good bones.”
Before striking out on their own, both siblings worked at Employees Only, Naama as a server, Assaf behind the bar. Their years there left a mark on them, and on the restaurant they’d eventually build.
“Lighthouse is a beacon in the bar community because of how humble and welcoming they are.”
Steve Schneider, the celebrated bartender and co-owner of Sip & Guzzle in the West Village (along with bars across Asia), was one of Assaf’s colleagues at Employees Only. “There was no job at Employees Only that was beneath them,” he tells me. “Everyone noticed their work ethic from the beginning, and you just knew when they decided to open their own place, it would be special.”
Renovating Lighthouse took more than a year and a small army of bartender friends. “Five or six of us idiots from Employees Only helped them demolish the place,” Schneider says. “And to see them build it with their own hands was very impressive, all of us wanted to support it.”
Much of what the Tamirs absorbed at Employees Only became the ethos of Lighthouse — turned up a few notches. “The ethos of Employees Only was to always take care of trade, and Naama and Assaf really bought into that,” says Schneider. “Taking care of trade doesn’t mean free stuff. It means a little extra empathy. And then it’s a huge plus they have great food and drinks at a reasonable price.”
Leo Robitschek, now vice president of food and beverage at Sydell and head of concept and culture at the NoMad Hotel, puts it succinctly: “Lighthouse was really the first restaurant I can remember that was opened by bartenders for bartenders.”
When Lighthouse opened its doors, the cocktail community was already forming around Williamsburg, but options were sparse. “They opened in a neighborhood where a lot of bartenders happened to live, yet it was woefully underserved,” says Schneider. So people came. Sasha Petraske, godfather of the modern-day cocktail movement, became a weekend regular, settling in with a full French press and reading the paper while industry friends drifted in to talk shop.
Credit: Naama Tamir
Building Community
After finishing the challah, Naama and I sit at the bar. She reflects on how Lighthouse became a trade haven without ever intending to be one. “We wanted to have a warm place for people to come to. We were immigrants and were embraced by the industry. New York can be a cold and cruel place and we wanted a place that people could feel at home,” she says.
“Still to this day, we believe in offering trade pricing for our food and drink. Working in this industry is tough and New York is expensive. Having to spend a lot of what you make working behind the bar or on the floor on good food should not be something you have to worry about. We believe that deeply.”
Community wasn’t a strategic plan, it was an extension of who they were. Naama and Assaf wanted Lighthouse to be a place that felt “precious,” where everyday hospitality felt elevated. “Sure EMP does this,” Naama says, “but it’s on a whole different, high-end level. We wanted to do this for the everyday.” Marshall echoes the sentiment: “Lighthouse is a beacon in the bar community because of how humble and welcoming they are.”
Everyone I spoke with mentioned Lighthouse as a place you go for support: emotional, professional, or otherwise. For years, the restaurant has hosted Another Round Another Rally’s monthly educational programming, offering space to an organization that supports hospitality workers who’ve historically been overlooked.
Industry connector B.Q. Nguyen, who knows everyone and goes everywhere, still often chooses Lighthouse. “Naama and Assaf are just so good at attracting great people. You go there, you make new connections, and build community without even realizing it,” he says.
Robitschek takes it further: “For me, Lighthouse is the ‘Cheers’ of our industry. Any way you show up, there’s never any pressure. They never make you feel like they’re trying to move you through the space or turn the table. … And what ultimately winds up happening is you start brunch at noon and just wind up staying all day. That’s just the kind of place it is.”
Credit: Naama Tamir
Staying Relevant
Lighthouse has never done PR. It has never sent out a press blast or hosted an industry party just to be seen. Yet its reputation has grown year after year because bartenders keep bringing other bartenders. “People in the industry find out about it because you get brought there,” says Marshall. “It’s intimate, … it’s inside baseball somehow.”
Moe Aljaff, co-owner of schmuck in the East Village, felt it right away. “When I first was taken to Lighthouse, it immediately felt like this family” he says. “It’s always felt like this wholesome gathering space where you just feel like you are being taken care of and the food feels like you are at a family member or the friend of a family member’s house.”
“Any way you show up, there’s never any pressure. They never make you feel like they’re trying to move you through the space or turn the table.”
The Tamirs don’t just host the community, they build it, literally. “When we first went to Lighthouse we spoke to Naama and asked who did the woodwork throughout the bar and she said Assaf. Twenty minutes later we’re asking Assaf to help us out and he winds up building the main table in our small bar at schmuck,” Aljaff tells me.
Everyone I interviewed repeated some version of the same sentiment: Naama and Assaf are among the best people in the business. They don’t chase attention; they don’t position themselves as industry celebrities. They simply show up, work hard, and care deeply.
“Naama and Assaf are so caring and nurturing, they are very genuine people, but they are also incredibly fun to be with,” Nguyen says. “Naama is always the first one to dance, at any event, and has the loudest, best laugh. They are really a New York institution as people.”
And Aljaff agrees: “I think it’s just an incredibly genuine place and members of the trade can recognize that. It’s just consistently a place that is there for you with warmth and hospitality. You don’t meet anyone in the industry who doesn’t love Naama and Assaf. They are freakin’ amazing. Hospitality people want hospitality themselves. Lighthouse is just this place that feels hearty and wholesome, and when you are there, you feel like it’s good for your soul.”
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