Rehearsal Dinner Venue in Lower Manhattan for 100 people, open to creative ideas?!

[elisheva903]

My fiance and I are holding our wedding in January for about 125 people in Brooklyn on a Saturday. Almost 100 of our guests are coming from out of town, and family expectations are that we will host a "rehearsal dinner" type event on Friday. We're trying to come up with some kind of affordable dinner to throw in Manhattan. We've tossed around a Chinatown chinese banquet, or a family style italian dinner. we're open to creative, fun, "weird", and just want our family to have fun and somehow not break the bank. we live in the LES and wanted to keep it local, but it may not be possible.

any ideas or recs out there!? thank you so much for your input!

[Blumie]

Wow, a rehearsal dinner for 100 is like having a second wedding! Get a quote from Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, on Crosby St. in SoHo. We were married there last year, and it was affordable and awesome!