Los Angeles
A neighborhood club for Leimert Park
A planned 1920s village and a center of Black cultural life in Los Angeles. $49 a month, and everything inside at a 10% mark-up.
Leimert Park was laid out in the 1920s with a park at the center and streets radiating from it, and it has been a center of Black art, music and politics in Los Angeles for sixty years. Degnan Boulevard is the heart of the village. The K Line now stops here. A neighborhood club would be joining something that already exists.
What going out in Leimert Park costs
The village itself is small and walkable, and much of what happens there is cultural rather than commercial, which means a night out often means leaving for Crenshaw, downtown or the Westside. Add the drive, the parking and the twenty-dollar cocktails at the other end, and two nights a week is four hundred dollars a month leaving the neighborhood. Coffee at two dollars, lunch at five, dinner at eight, and forty-nine dollars a month keeps that spending local and small.
| 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 Leimert 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 Leimert Park
This is a neighborhood with more organized civic life than most of the city: drum circles, the Sunday crowd in the plaza, long-running arts organizations, and families who have held property here for three or four generations. Younger people moving in near the rail line do not automatically plug into any of it. A club with regular hours, a membership list and a monthly commitment to a local park is a way in that does not require knowing somebody first.
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 Leimert 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. Leimert 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: Leimert Plaza Park, Degnan Boulevard, Crenshaw Boulevard, Vision Theatre, Leimert Park Metro K 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 Leimert Park list together.
Near Leimert Park
Other Los Angeles neighborhoods
Questions
- Is there an IRL club in Leimert 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 Leimert Park list is what decides whether and when a club opens here.
- How much does the Leimert 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 Leimert 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 Leimert 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 Leimert 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.