The King Cole Bar Reopens, Moodier Than Before

It’s been a long eight months for Bill Dante.

Since January, when the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis New York, where he is a bartender, had its last night of service before a renovation, Mr. Dante has been keeping a close eye on his finances.

There have been none of the usual trips to Provincetown or Fire Island. Get-togethers with friends were limited to drinks and appetizers.

“It was really boring, and the heat wave was torture,” he said. “My electric bill is huge.”

If Mr. Dante was temporarily out of a job, his regulars have been out of sorts. On the night before the King Cole Bar went on hiatus, they seemed particularly anguished.

“They were just, ‘Oh, what are we going to do? My God, where are we going to go?’” he said. He remembers having to fight an eye-roll: “This is New York City! I mean, you can go to the Peninsula, you can go to the Ritz-Carlton — there’s lots of lovely old establishments you can go to. But they love this room.”

Ahead of the St. Regis New York’s 120th anniversary, the hotel undertook the first major renovation of its public spaces in over a decade. On Thursday, the King Cole Bar, as well as the adjoining Astor Court and Petit Salon areas, will reopen to the public.

Ever since Col. John Jacob Astor IV opened its doors in September 1904, the hotel has loomed large in New York’s idea of itself as the center of the universe — creative, cultural and otherwise.