For many patrons, [the] big draw is an earnest young man named Kyler James. Clad all in black and seated at a table near the bar, James offers a special service: For $25, he will spend 15 minutes consulting his deck of Tarot cards to offer guidance on your future.

“People often try it as a lark at first,” reported James, who entertains a following of regulars. “But then they’re astounded by it, and they come back again and again.”

An after-dinner Tarot reading can be enlightening—like the time James held a woman’s ring in his hand and said her daughter’s name: Tobi.

“She screamed, so everyone who heard her wanted to get their cards read because of that,” James recalled. “Frankly, I don’t think it’s so startling that I got the name; what I had to say to this woman after that was much more important.” James takes what he does quite seriously.

“I’ve been a truth-seeker all my life,” he said. “I’ve worked hard for years to get to the meaning of the cards, in order to help people with what’s going on in their lives.”

Banish visions of shawl-swathed gypsies at the many clairvoyant storefronts that dot the New York landscape. James is no shady fortune-teller. The former actor calls himself a “psychic counselor” and has a degree in liberal arts from NYU. He likens what he does to therapy.

“It’s not that I’m predicting the future so much as helping you to create the future that you want,” he explained. “I combine left-brain intelligence with right-brain intuition:  That’s my specialty.”

What’s more, he’s an author. James recently completed a novel and a non-fiction tome entitled “The Higher Genius:  A Magical Approach to the Self” (his literary agent is currently shopping both). [This was my first agent who came very close to selling the nonfiction book; but she left New York before she could shop my first novel.] During a reading, his references may range from Nietzsche to the movie “Run Lola Run.”

As James points out, a Tarot reading and a fine meal have one very important thing in common: “I don’t want to sound New Agey, but both are nourishing,” he said.