Sacco hopes that the Bungalow regulars long accustomed to seeing her every night on 27th Street—where she recently renewed the club's lease, despite rumors that she was planning to close—will understand why she can't now be in all places at once. "If they really love me, then they'd want me to have a life," she says. "Does André Balazs greet you in the lobby of the Mercer when you check in? No. But when you go to any one of his hotels, you know what to expect."
Though she counts an increasing number of A-listers in her inner circle (in addition to Clooney, there's Sean Penn and Sienna Miller), Sacco insists that, when it comes to dealing with celebrities, maintaining a professional distance is crucial. With a few exceptions, she says, "I consider celebrities to be clients, not friends. They're customers who need service. And that's what I do for a living—I provide service." Not that Sacco is posturing as a lowly waitress. "I just try to put myself in a position where I never ask [clients] for anything," she says. "People will go, 'You can use my plane whenever you want!' But I turn a lot of things down, because if I say yes, later they're going to ask me for something 10 times bigger."
As Sacco expands her empire as a lifestyle guru, one major perk will be a substantial, steady income—something that's notoriously elusive in the nightlife business. Art-world impresario Yvonne Force Villareal, one of Sacco's former coworkers at Bouley, says her friend is like any self-made person who's done a lot of hard work "for no immediate financial reward" and is ready to make it big. "You've built the foundation so you can start having fun with the architecture," Villareal says. Sacco is about to trade her small Chelsea studio for a penthouse in the District building. But as she starts living larger, Sacco says, there's some important advice of her mother's that has been echoing in her head.
"You know that thing of sewing a dime in your bra so you can always make a phone call?" she asks. She might require a passport and an American Express black card these days, but the basic idea is the same. "Sew that black card in your bra," Sacco says. "And make sure you can charge that first-class ticket home."
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