Located on the 67th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, The Weather Room invites New Yorkers and visitors alike to experience the city with a new perspective—hovering nearly 850 feet above Rockefeller Center right in the center of Midtown Manhattan, with an indoor lounge and open-air outdoor patio.

If the location sounds familiar, the bar is indeed one of the latest additions to Top of the Rock’s refreshed offerings, which also include SKYLIFT, a 360-degree rotating observation platform, and The Beam, a photo opp mimicking the historic 1932 photo of ironworkers. Like other aspects of Rockefeller Center, this experience is specifically designed for locals as much as it is for those visiting the city for the first time.

The bar and seating area inside The Weather Room at Top of the Rock

“As a New Yorker, sometimes we assume that Rockefeller Center is like Times Square and try to avoid it, but what’s interesting is that in the late afternoon and evening, it’s actually really peaceful and serene,” Dave Peterson, president of The Weather Room and partner at concert promotion company Sister Midnight, tells The Center Magazine. “It's something we want to show people.”

To do so, they reclaimed a nondescript area of the lowest of the three floors of Top of the Rock, a space where visitors were often just milling about taking a break or charging their phones, and have slowly been evolving it since November 2023, adding booths, tables, chairs, and a bar, and transforming it into an inviting lounge space.

Groups of people sitting at booths inside The Weather Room at Top of the Rock

Since the Weather Room is located in the iconic 30 Rock, Peterson also hopes guests will think of the venue for their special moments to create core memories. “Maybe your grandmother brought you up as a child and you had hot chocolate in the winter overlooking Central Park, but now you can come up and have a few rounds of martinis or a bottle of Champagne as an adult,” he says.

With views of the city twinkling below, the sky-high venue is complemented with a tapas-style menu from chef Ryan Farrar, known for Brooklyn Mexican spot Claro and Japanese noodle chain Ivan Ramen. The offerings include something for everyone, from caviar service and shrimp cocktail to a range of aperitivo bar food, creating “very casual, but elevated” eats.

The drinks menu is equally diverse, with Champagne Billecart-Salmon, plus creatively themed cocktails, like a Kir Royale du Rock with cassis, lemon essence, and bubbles, and Martini “Sixty-Seven” with gin, Manzanilla sherry, and dry vermouth. Mocktails, wine, beer, cider, sodas, coffee, and tea are also offered.

But he says the “if you know, you know” combo to order is a martini with a hot dog. Here, a traditional New York-style dog is made of Niman Ranch natural and sustainable meat paired with Martin’s Potato Rolls buns.

A Weather Room bartender standing in front a display of liquor

It’s all served up behind a curtain in a space that’s as simple as it is elegant. “What’s great about these older buildings in New York is that they’re timeless,” Peterson says. So his mission was to “coalesce with the Art Deco of it all,” while “making sure that it still felt modern.”

The result is a space that fits into the building's 1933 roots almost a bit too naturally at first glance. But take a second look, and the speakers are from Brooklyn audio consulting firm House Under Magic, who also did the borough’s boundary-pushing cultural hub Public Records, and the unifying Sapele wood used throughout is from Red Hook’s Current Flow Woodwork. The marble behind the bar is made of bianca dolomite, a soft Turkish marble that perfectly matches the walls’ veneer plaster and terrazzo motifs.

It’s an upgrade that’s as meaningful as it is beautiful, since the name “The Weather Room” is an ode to its past. Forecasts used to be broadcast from here based on the WSR-57 radar that sat on the 70th floor, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Installed in 1960, the 400-pound device with a 12-foot radius was used until 1995 when it was replaced by NBC4 New York’s Doppler 4000 radar. But around the mid-1990s, that was taken over by a StormTracker 4 device located at New Jersey’s Rutgers University campus. Now, the space where the radar dome once stood is the site of SKYLIFT.

It’s been a fitting project for Peterson, who worked at his college radio station and has had such a love of radars that he even uses the word Doppler in his company name. His background in festival, concert, and experiential event promotion and production melds perfectly with his creative director, César Alvarez, who brings his expertise from the cultural and fashion worlds.

“We are doing everything very intentionally and in a meaningful way,” Alvarez says, citing everything from the curating of the music from East London’s NTS Radio to coffee from women-owned indie shop Cafe Grumpy. “I like to call it a fantasy for the customers.”

Two people sitting on couches on The Weather Room's outdoor terrace

Already, he’s seen The Weather Room’s space, especially its outdoor patio, used by a wide range of people, from school groups to couples sitting there tanning. “The other day around 2pm, there was a group of ladies in their 70s having so much fun and dancing to music, so I brought them some Champagne,” Alvarez said. “They were like, ‘We’re celebrating her divorce!’ They were such legends!”

A cocktail and plates of food available at The Weather Room at Top of the Rock

The Weather Room is open from 8am to midnight, just like the rest of Top of the Rock. In the mornings, pastries and parfaits are on hand, while its all-day menu features sourdough grilled cheese and a New York bagel with smoked salmon. In addition to the sit-down bar, its two kiosks at the front will sell handheld foods, encouraging visitors to grab-and-go and enjoy observation areas. Peterson is also working on an additional bar on the 69th floor, scheduled to open in the summer to double down on sipping and roaming.

The evolution of the space will continue to be slow and steady, as they study how people use it practically and steer the direction into the natural flow. Current projects include adding more custom weather-proof cement furniture to the outdoor space, which will also fit better with the exterior architecture.

“We're very honored to have the trust from the building to really speak to the history,” Peterson says. “This is the heart of New York, and we want New Yorkers to really take the space over.”

The Weather Room is located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.