For a decade, Old Town after dark split into two worlds: the club corridor with its velvet ropes and bottle sparklers, and a handful of rooms where people actually cared about what was in the glass. Second Story was firmly the second kind, a dim, speakeasy-styled den up an unmarked stairwell on Scottsdale Road where the bartenders stirred drinks like they were being graded.
It closed on May 4, 2024, after ten years, when owner Tommy Plato leased the building to a taco chain and put his energy into The Ends, his Bourdain-inspired room on Stetson Drive. The bar program and much of the staff went with him.
When to go: you can’t. Walk two blocks east to The Ends for the same instincts in a bigger room, or read our speakeasy guide for the hidden bars that took Second Story’s place.