Can 1 Oak And Butter Make Boston Cool?

Local nightlife partners Scott Sartiano and Richie Akiva are scouting locations for a Boston satellite of Butter or 1 Oak. Will this development give Beantown nightlife a much-needed shot in the arm or lead to a collapsed vein for the Manhattan club world heavyweights?

Boston is known for many things: revolutionary history, the Kennedys, esteemed seats of higher learning, soul-killing winters and ubiquitous North Face fleece. It's also known for public transportation that calls it a night around the same time as your senile granny and moribund nightlife divided between puke-stained Red Sox bars and dreadful discos replete with Boston University eurotrash.

Sartiano and Akiva might be a good bet to liven things up. Butter and 1 Oak have endured as magnets for a certain type of status-conscious New Yorker that status-conscious and inferiority-complexed Bostonians likely emulate. But then again, their flashiness, obscene expensiveness and celeb-friendliness won't translate that smoothly in a city generally averse to such things. As for 1 Oak's tough door, Bostonians would prefer it if exclusivity remained at Harvard and The Country Club.

Maybe the next 1 Oak or Butter will introduce a little bit of NYC (or at least Meatpacking District) glitz to Boston, for better or worse. Maybe it will be tempered and molded in Boston's proudly staid image. But Sartiano and Akiva should be careful that the city that sleep's influence doesn't ricochet and dilute their brand back in Manhattan.

Then again, they already rolled the dice with a Butter in Charlotte, so maybe Boston doesn't pose much of a challenge or threat after all.

Photo via Dissolver