The model
How it works
A bar makes its money on the drink. A club can make its money on the membership and then sell the drink for what it costs. That single swap is the entire idea.
Where your money goes in a normal bar
The liquid in a $17 cocktail costs the bar somewhere around $3 to $4. The other thirteen dollars are not profit. They are rent on a commercial lease, a bartender, a barback, a dishwasher, insurance, utilities, card processing, breakage, and the margin that keeps the lights on through a slow February. A bar that charged $4 for that cocktail would close inside a quarter.
So the problem is not greed. It is that the drink is the only thing a bar is allowed to charge for. Every fixed cost in the building has to be recovered through the price of something consumable, which means the mark-up on consumables has to be enormous.
What changes when the membership carries the building
A membership is a second revenue line that does not depend on how much anyone drinks. At $49 a month, a few hundred members cover rent and payroll before anyone orders anything. Once the building is paid for, the menu only has to cover the menu. We set the mark-up at 10% over what the ingredients and the labour actually cost, which produces these prices:
| Item | Normal menu price | At IRL |
|---|---|---|
| Drip coffee | $4-5 | $2 |
| Latte | $6-8 | $3 |
| Beer | $8-10 | $2 |
| Cocktail | $16-20 | $4 |
| Lunch | $18-21 | $5-6 |
| Dinner | $26-32 | $8 |
Normal menu prices are typical 2026 ranges across Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. IRL prices are the same in every city because they are driven by cost, not by rent.
This is also why the membership cannot be cheaper than it is. $49 is not a price we picked to sound appealing. It is roughly what a square foot of leased space plus a staffed bar divided by a realistic member count comes to.
Join the waitlist
Pick your neighborhood
Join the waitlist and tell us where you want a club. We open a neighborhood once enough people nearby are on the list.
One quick thing —
You are on the list.
Memberships open in pairs (or more). People referred together join together, and bigger groups move up the list.
$49/month when we open. No card now. Leaving the waitlist is one click.
The monthly shift, and why it is not mandatory
Members are asked to work one three-hour shift a month, and to turn up for one park clean-up day a month. Neither is required, and nobody is thrown out for skipping them. They exist for two reasons. The first is arithmetic: volunteer hours are the difference between a $4 cocktail and a $6 one.
The second reason matters more. Working a shift next to someone for three hours is a better way to meet them than standing next to them at a bar for three hours. It gives you a task, a reason to talk, and a reason to see them again next month. Most of the friendships we expect the club to produce will start on a shift rather than on a stool.
Memberships open in pairs
Nobody gets in alone. When a neighborhood opens, we admit people in the groups they signed up as, because a club where everyone arrives solo on the first night is a room full of strangers looking at their phones. Everyone who joins the waitlist gets a referral link; anyone who signs up through it becomes part of your group, and larger groups move up the list together.
It is also the only growth mechanism we have. There is no advertising budget in a business that sells cocktails for $4.
What this is not
- Not a private members club. There is no door policy, no committee and no initiation fee. The only thing standing between you and a membership is whether the club near you has opened yet.
- Not a co-working space. There are no desk bookings, no meeting rooms and no phone booths. See third places for what it is trying to be instead.
- Not a restaurant you can book. Members and the people they bring, that is it. The economics stop working the moment it is open to walk-ins at those prices.
- Not open yet, anywhere. Every city on this site is a waitlist. We open a neighborhood when enough people who live in it have signed up.
Where we are going first
Three cities, and the first club in each is already chosen.
Questions
- How can cocktails cost $4?
- Because the membership has already paid for the room. The ingredients in a cocktail cost a bar roughly $3 to $4; the rest of a normal $17 price covers rent, wages and overhead. A $49 monthly membership covers those fixed costs separately, so the drink only needs to cover the drink plus a 10% mark-up.
- Is the $49 membership the only cost?
- Yes. There is no initiation fee, no annual fee, no minimum spend and no tipping expectation on top. You pay $49 a month and then menu prices that run at cost plus 10%. Sitting on the waitlist is free and does not require a card.
- Do I have to work a shift?
- No. Members are asked to do one three-hour shift and one park clean-up day a month, but neither is mandatory and there is no penalty for skipping them. They keep the cost base low, and they happen to be the fastest way to actually get to know the other members.
- Why do memberships open in pairs?
- A club where everyone arrives alone on opening night is a room of strangers. Admitting people in the groups they signed up as means every new member already knows someone inside. Everyone on the waitlist gets a referral link, and bigger referral groups move up the list together.
- Which city opens first?
- All three cities are waitlists right now. The first Seattle club is planned for Wallingford, the first San Francisco club for the Inner Sunset, and the first Los Angeles club for Atwater Village. Which neighborhood opens after those is decided entirely by where the signups are concentrated.