Los Angeles
A neighborhood club for Venice
Beach, boardwalk, canals and the most expensive walkable blocks on the Westside. $49 a month, and everything inside at a 10% mark-up.
Venice is a beach town with canals, a boardwalk and a street grid laid out before cars. Abbot Kinney Boulevard is the commercial spine and it is priced for visitors. Locals have been pushed inland block by block for twenty years. A neighborhood club in Venice would be aimed at the people who live here year round rather than the people passing through.
What going out in Venice costs
Abbot Kinney and Rose Avenue are where people actually go, and the pricing reflects a street that gets tourists seven days a week. Nine dollars for a coffee drink is not unusual, cocktails sit at twenty and up, and dinner for two with wine passes a hundred and twenty. Parking is the second tax: either you circle for twenty minutes or you pay a lot. Two outings a week lands around seven hundred dollars monthly. Thirty-nine dollars a month with a menu at cost plus ten percent reads differently here than anywhere.
| 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 Venice
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 Venice
Venice is full of people who came for the beach and discovered that everyone else is either in transit or already locked into a group from a decade ago. The surf and skate scenes are real and closed. Short-term rentals churn whole blocks over. Meeting someone who will still be around in a year takes effort. A club with a waitlist, a membership roll and a monthly volunteer shift selects for people who intend to stay, which is most of the point.
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 Venice 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. Venice opens when enough people here are on the list, which is the only thing that decides the order.
Landmarks inside or bordering the radius: Venice Beach Boardwalk, Venice Canals, Abbot Kinney Boulevard, Venice Fishing Pier, Windward Avenue.
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 Venice list together.
Near Venice
Other Los Angeles neighborhoods
Questions
- Is there an IRL club in Venice 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 Venice list is what decides whether and when a club opens here.
- How much does the Venice 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 Venice 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 Venice 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 Venice 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.