Lucky Cheng’s Preps for Pride Parade, Move Uptown

chengs.jpogDaniel Maurer The current location of Lucky Cheng’s on First Avenue.

With the annual Drag March set to kick off in Tompkins Square Park at 7 p.m. tonight and the final performance of “Cowboy Mouth” tonight as well, we thought we’d check in with Hayne Suthon, the owner of Lucky Cheng’s, which will soon move to Times Square.

Ms. Suthon hopes to haul her her drag operation to 240 West 52nd Street around Labor Day weekend, and is in negotiations with two “upscale” operators in the same vein as Beauty & Essex.

“All the concepts are nice restaurants. Not clubby kind of stuff,” Ms. Suthon said.

“Sutra has been shopping around for something more high end,” she added, referencing Ariel Palitz’s nightclub on the same blocks as Cheng’s, which is also on the market. “It’s time to be a bit more grown-up around the neighborhood.”

The basement will likely be turned into a lounge, according to Ms. Suthon. But one concept pitched for the space would hark back to the days before Lucky Cheng’s, when the space was Club Baths: a spa-bar-restaurant combo. A large jacuzzi remains in place from those days; it has lately been used as a stage, but Ms. Suthon said the drainage system is still in place.

The girls, meanwhile, are focused on Lucky Cheng’s unofficial Broadway debut during Sunday’s Pride March. The drag queens plan to dress up as different Broadway characters and strut their stuff on a float from Midtown down to the West Village.