Finally, An App That Finds Only Bars And Nightclubs!

Everybody loves a night out, but that bar down the street with stale Pabst Blue Ribbon can get old. Now, one startup wants to drag you off that sticky barstool and shake up your nightlife somewhere new.

NightOwl, which just launched its beta app in New York City, is a way for partiers to search for bars and clubs in the area that serve their favorite whiskey, are spinning their favorite records, or offering the perfect ambiance for the night.

“It’s easy to just fall back into your go-to spot,” co-founder Kevin Madden says, who started NightOwl with longtime friend Haig Didizian.

Here’s how it works: Users first list their current favorite spots on the town so NightOwl can suggest some similar locales you may be interested in. As users visit more places, they can tag the venue, for example, with labels like “great music,” “bro central” for the fraternity brothers, or even “can charge phone,” so users can have enough juice to search for their next spot. The more tags that are generated, the easier it is for NightOwl users to find what they’re looking for.

The company’s founders developed an algorithm they call the Nightlife Genome Project that combines with Yelp and other local search service reviews to match the perfect bar for its user. NightOwl already has a catalogue of more than 3,000 New York City bars and clubs and customizes search results based on days of the week (so you can take advantage of a new Margarita Monday).

While the app is an obvious benefit to the venues that appear in NightOwl search results, Madden and Didizian say future versions of the program will generate revenue through sponsored and featured venues.

It’s described as the Foursquare for nightlife, with a few crucial extra features. NightOwl, for one, is partnering with Uber to coordinate rides to and from a venue. Plus, there’s a convenient ability to customize your privacy settings; while all tags will be searchable for anyone, the tags you have created or searched for, and the bars you’ve visited and saved in a personal list, can remain confidential. So if you tend to get a little too wild, other NightOwlers don’t have to know just what you’re into.