San Francisco
A neighborhood club for Outer Sunset
Avenues running down to Ocean Beach, fog most of the year, low buildings throughout. $49 a month, and everything inside at a 10% mark-up.
The Outer Sunset is flat, foggy and almost entirely residential, with Judah and Taraval carrying what commerce there is and Ocean Beach at the western edge. It has grown younger over the past decade without growing much denser. A club in the Outer Sunset would be a short bike ride for thousands of people who currently have nowhere indoors to go.
What going out in Outer Sunset costs
Judah and Taraval have both filled in, and coffee out here now costs what it costs everywhere: seven dollars, sometimes more, with a line. Evenings mean either the handful of places near the beach or a long N Judah ride east, and the trip east is what makes it expensive, because a night that includes a commute is never a short one. Two of those a week plus weekday coffee is three hundred dollars a month. Thirty-nine a month and at-cost pricing is a different arithmetic entirely.
| Per week | In San Francisco | At IRL | Saved / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekday coffee (5 a week) | $7 | $3 | $87 |
| Lunch out (2 a week) | $21 | $6 | $130 |
| Drinks (4 a week) | $19 | $4 | $260 |
| Dinner out (1 a week) | $32 | $8 | $104 |
| Monthly total | $801 | $270* | $531 |
*Includes the $49 monthly membership. Menu prices only, before tax and tip in the San Francisco column, which is where the real gap gets wider. Annual difference: $6,375.
Nothing on that list is extravagant. Five coffees, two lunches, four drinks and one dinner is a quiet week. At San Francisco prices it still comes to $801 a month, which is $6,375 a year more than the same week costs at cost plus ten percent.
Join the waitlist
Get a club in Outer Sunset
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 Outer Sunset
The Outer Sunset has absorbed a lot of people in their late twenties and thirties who could not afford the east side, layered over families who have held the same block for generations. Surf and the beach do some of the connecting and exclude everybody else. Distance is the main obstacle: friends live far away, visits get scheduled weeks out, and the default becomes staying in. A room with fixed hours within walking distance changes that default without anyone having to plan.
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 San Francisco.
Where a Outer Sunset 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 San Francisco club is planned for Inner Sunset. Outer Sunset opens when enough people here are on the list, which is the only thing that decides the order.
Landmarks inside or bordering the radius: Ocean Beach, Judah Street, Taraval Street, Sunset Branch Library, Golden Gate Park.
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 Outer Sunset list together.
Near Outer Sunset
Other San Francisco neighborhoods
Questions
- Is there an IRL club in Outer Sunset yet?
- Not yet. Every neighborhood starts as a waitlist, and the first San Francisco club is planned for Inner Sunset. We open a neighborhood once enough people who live nearby have signed up, so the Outer Sunset list is what decides whether and when a club opens here.
- How much does the Outer Sunset 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 Outer Sunset member actually save?
- On a normal week of five coffees, two lunches, four drinks and one dinner, San Francisco menu prices come to about $801 a month. The same week at IRL is about $270 including the membership, a difference of roughly $6,375 a year before tax and tip.
- Do I have to live in Outer Sunset 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 Outer Sunset 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.