Dancefloor stalwart Gabriel Mayorga used to go out dancing five days a week, spending select nights at the club Pacha, formerly located in Hell’s Kitchen. Electronic music newcomers and house heads alike danced shoulder to shoulder in the multi-floor club. Mayorga, who earned the nickname Silverbull for his layered chains, sterling cuffs and bull-shaped ring, often danced from open to close.
“I wasn’t expecting a fully music-driven crowd,” Mayorga, 45, says of Pacha, “but I was always expecting a fun time.”
As the scene grew, Pacha went from hosting local house legends like Danny Tenaglia to mainstream artists like David Guetta, contributing to a tidal wave of electronic music in the Big Apple. The venue closed in 2016, as electronic music venues began cropping up in Brooklyn. Nearly a decade after shutting its doors, Pacha is returning to the city with a new address and agenda.
Pacha, which operates a thriving club in Ibiza, Spain, is part of a brand now operated by Dubai-based company FIVE Holdings. It has promised to inaugurate a new era for the industrial district of East Williamsburg as it takes over the massive space that previously housed the Brooklyn Mirage. As Pacha prepares for a June 13 and June 14 pre-opener at 140 Stewart Ave., the club has the intricate challenge of regaining the dance music community’s trust after the Mirage’s botched renovation and subsequent bankruptcy. Sold-out shows and lineup buzz suggest Pacha could become the next New York City nightlife juggernaut. While some worry the venue will become the Brooklyn Mirage 2.0, other electronic music fans have expressed cautious optimism.
A Pacha representative declined to comment about venue design, construction costs, ticket sales, liquor licensing, and improvement plans over the troubled Brooklyn Mirage.
The exterior of Pacha
That club was a big deal. It transformed East Williamsburg’s warehouse district into an industrial playground, drawing thousands of fans to watch big-name DJs perform beside flamethrowers, fireworks and a wraparound screen.
“It was not driven by the culture,” he said. “It was not driven by the history. It was more like, ‘I'm young. I'm in Brooklyn. This is a popular space.’”
Then came a $30 million renovation. But after a Department of Buildings examiner revealed serious code and safety issues, the venue was deemed unsafe to reopen, according to DOB press secretary Andrew Rudansky. As the venue postponed events, artists scrambled for new gigs while ticketholders ranted online.
The Brooklyn Mirage had previously faced backlash, with regulators citing rampant drug use and multiple fatal overdoses. In 2023, two concertgoers were found dead in Newtown Creek after leaving the Mirage. By August 2025, the Mirage filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and months later submitted permits for a full demolition.
Pacha execs have worked to wash away the bad taste the Brooklyn Mirage left in music fans’ mouths. In a mid-April Brooklyn community board meeting presentation, Pacha execs reported the takeover would create 450 jobs and provide the city with $75 million in direct economic activity generated annually. The venue has also launched proposals like “goodwill coupons” for food, beverage and merchandise to about 30,000 Mirage ticketholders who weren’t refunded for canceled shows when the club went bankrupt. They plan to implement shuttle services to major L train stops like Jefferson Street, Morgan Avenue and Union Square in Manhattan from 2:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m, as well as improved cell service, enhanced security and a post-show sanitation plan.
Paul Samulski, president of the North Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, started visiting the site when the demolition began and stands behind the revenue-generating business.
“It's a loud, noisy, dirty, rumbly, crumbly neighborhood,” Samulski said, referring to the area’s scrap yards and heavy-duty trucks. “I think that what they're trying to do over there will, at the end of the day, be a good thing for the neighborhood.”
The exterior of Pacha ahead of opening
Not everyone shares Samulski’s enthusiasm. Brooklyn Community Board 4 Chair Robert Camacho, who represents neighboring Bushwick, can do without another nightlife venue disrupting the peace. Some residents told the board they were worried by Pacha’s future operating hours and liquor laws.
“People that live in that community or in those buildings in the area have their own right to sleep and relax like everybody else does,” Camacho told Gothamist. Pacha patrons, he said, “go back to their own little spot, and it's nice and quiet, and we got to deal with the garbage and the junk in this community.”
Brooklyn Community Board 1, which represents East Williamsburg and Greenpoint, previously denied advisory approval of the liquor license. For Camacho, another approved liquor license adds further stress to the neighborhood.
“I’d tell Pacha, ‘Everything is about ching ching ching, let the cash register ring,’” Camacho said. “They’re not from here.”
The State Liquor Authority voted to approve Pacha’s temporary liquor license in a May 28 board meeting. After weighing community members' noise concerns, the board made venue-specific stipulations such as banning pyrotechnics and requiring monthly logs of ticket sales, volume levels and capacity figures. Another condition of the liquor license: a walkthrough of the venue for the club’s protesters and key Brooklyn community board members ahead of the preseason opener.
“We all have to understand that there has to be a relationship between community and business,” FIVE Holdings chair and founder Kabir Mulchandani said during the meeting. “Business has to grow and community has to be respected, and we have done this all over the world.”
Sophia Bojorque, a record label operations manager, said social media videos of Pacha’s construction updates led her to believe the venue would become “Brooklyn Mirage 2.0.”
“It felt like that area was tainted,” said Bojorque, 27. “Like no business could go back there.”
At a Brooklyn community board meeting in mid-April, Mulchandani assured audiences this time would be different. Using a “far more expensive, far more time-consuming” approach, the company received a DOB stamp of approval for work permit applications by April, opting for a scaled-down venue, with a temporary stage, platforms, a video screen, and a 23-foot acoustic wall that will dampen noise levels, according to Rudansky, the DOB press secretary.
Work continued at Pacha in early June.
On May 15, the venue was approved for public programming from June 1 to Aug. 30, after obtaining a temporary place of assembly certificate of operation, Rudansky said in an email. The certification caps the outdoor capacity at 5,326 people, which is up from 5,200 at the Mirage. It mandates 54 fireguards on site for all events.
Andrew Inomata served as the original Pacha’s marketing director and remembered when the police shut the location down on opening night. “There are 1,000 things that go wrong,” said Inomata, who’s now the creative director of the Manhattan club Le Bain. “You hope to catch all of it in advance, and that's the goal, but there's always gonna be something.”
Dance music lover Kaylen Thorpe feels nostalgic about the old Pacha, where bikini-clad dancers shimmied in translucent shower stalls and high-pressure CO2 jets blanketed the main floor. The new Pacha offers a different reality: a stripped-down outdoor venue, presale drink packages and costly ticket prices.
“I saw the prices on some of the tickets, and they're absolutely outrageous, like hundreds of dollars for just a couple hours in this place,” said Thorpe, 39. “And VIP seats, they can start at like $400 or $500.”
Despite this, Thorpe already bought a ticket to a June 26 show for Masters at Work, a DJ duo made up of New York natives “Little” Louie Vega and Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez.
“I like house music,” Thorpe said. “And Pacha is a house music brand, right?”
And if the price is right, Thorpe says they will scoop up tickets for the preseason opening, too.
