Los Angeles
A neighborhood club for Highland Park
A long commercial strip on York and Figueroa, with a Metro station and steep side streets. $49 a month, and everything inside at a 10% mark-up.
Highland Park sits in the Arroyo Seco, and it has changed faster than almost anywhere in Los Angeles over the past fifteen years. York Boulevard and Figueroa Street carry most of the activity. The L Line stops here, which matters more than people outside the neighborhood realize. A club on either strip would be reachable without a car.
What going out in Highland Park costs
York and Figueroa together give you two miles of frontage, and the walk between them is uphill. Most people pick one and stay on it. Prices tracked the newcomers: a pour-over at five or six dollars, cocktails in the high teens, dinner for two around sixty-five. Four outings a week, which is normal here because the strip is right there, gets you past four hundred dollars a month. The IRL version is forty-nine dollars a month with coffee near two dollars and cocktails near four.
| Per week | In Los Angeles | At IRL | Saved / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekday coffee (5 a week) | $7 | $3 | $87 |
| Lunch out (2 a week) | $20 | $6 | $121 |
| Drinks (4 a week) | $18 | $4 | $242 |
| Dinner out (1 a week) | $30 | $8 | $95 |
| Monthly total | $766 | $270* | $497 |
*Includes the $49 monthly membership. Menu prices only, before tax and tip in the Los Angeles column, which is where the real gap gets wider. Annual difference: $5,959.
Nothing on that list is extravagant. Five coffees, two lunches, four drinks and one dinner is a quiet week. At Los Angeles prices it still comes to $766 a month, which is $5,959 a year more than the same week costs at cost plus ten percent.
Join the waitlist
Get a club in Highland Park
Join the waitlist. We open a neighborhood once enough people nearby are on the list, and memberships open in pairs or groups, so bring someone.
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.
Making friends in Highland Park
Highland Park holds two populations at once, families who have been on these blocks for generations and arrivals from the past decade, and there is real friction between them. Newer residents tend to socialize inside the group they arrived with. Everyone else is on the sidewalk, at the library, at the park. A club that asks members to work a volunteer shift and spend a day on a local park puts both groups in the same place doing the same thing.
The mechanism matters more than the intention. A club has opening hours, a membership list, and a monthly volunteer shift, which means you end up in the same room as the same people on purpose and without scheduling anything. More on that in how to make friends in Los Angeles.
Where a Highland Park club would sit
We draw a walking radius, not a city boundary. A club only works if getting there is a short enough walk that you go without deciding to go. The first Los Angeles club is planned for Atwater Village. Highland Park opens when enough people here are on the list, which is the only thing that decides the order.
Landmarks inside or bordering the radius: York Boulevard, North Figueroa Street, Sycamore Grove Park, Arroyo Seco, Highland Park Metro L Line Station.
The short version
- $49 a month. That is the whole membership. No initiation, no minimum spend.
- Everything at a 10% mark-up. $2 drip coffee, $3 latte, $4 cocktails, $6 lunch, $8 dinner.
- A 3-hour shift a month, if you want to. Plus one park day. Not mandatory, and it is the fastest way to actually meet the other members.
- Memberships open in pairs or groups. Anyone who joins through your link is in your group, and bigger groups move up the Highland Park list together.
Near Highland Park
Other Los Angeles neighborhoods
Questions
- Is there an IRL club in Highland Park yet?
- Not yet. Every neighborhood starts as a waitlist, and the first Los Angeles club is planned for Atwater Village. We open a neighborhood once enough people who live nearby have signed up, so the Highland Park list is what decides whether and when a club opens here.
- How much does the Highland Park club cost?
- $49 a month, the same in every neighborhood. Inside, the menu runs at cost plus a 10% mark-up: $2 drip coffee, $3 lattes, $4 cocktails, $6 lunch, $8 dinner. There is no initiation fee, no minimum spend and no card required to sit on the waitlist.
- How much would a Highland Park member actually save?
- On a normal week of five coffees, two lunches, four drinks and one dinner, Los Angeles menu prices come to about $766 a month. The same week at IRL is about $270 including the membership, a difference of roughly $5,959 a year before tax and tip.
- Do I have to live in Highland Park to join?
- No, but it helps your position. Clubs are built around a walking radius, so we weight the list toward people who actually live close enough to drop in without planning it. You can join the Highland Park list from anywhere and tell us whether you live locally.
- What is the volunteer shift?
- Members are asked to work one three-hour shift a month, and to join one park clean-up day a month. Neither is mandatory. Both exist because they keep the cost base low enough to sell a cocktail for $4, and because working a shift next to someone is a faster way to meet them than standing near them at a bar.