San Francisco
A neighborhood club for Potrero Hill
Sunny hillside blocks with wide views, a small 18th Street strip, and freeways below. $49 a month, and everything inside at a 10% mark-up.
Potrero Hill gets sun when the west side is socked in, and the views from the top are why most people put up with the grades. Commercial life is concentrated on a few blocks of 18th Street. Everything else is housing. A neighborhood club on Potrero Hill would be the closest thing to a living room that anyone has outside their own.
What going out in Potrero Hill costs
The 18th Street blocks are pleasant and few, and because there are not many of them the prices hold steady at city rates: seven or eight for coffee, high teens for a cocktail, entrees over twenty-five. Anything more and you are driving or taking the 22 somewhere else, which adds cost and friction. Households here routinely spend three hundred dollars a month on what amounts to coffee and two dinners. Thirty-nine dollars a month and at-cost pricing changes what a normal week can include.
| 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 Potrero Hill
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 Potrero Hill
The hill is physically isolating in a way that matters. Steep approaches on three sides, freeways cutting it off from the east, and a population mixing long-time owners, families, and people who work in the shops and studios below. Running into someone by accident is rare. That makes a fixed location with regular hours more valuable, not less: if the room is open and the same twenty people use it, the hill stops being a reason to see nobody.
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 Potrero Hill 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. Potrero Hill opens when enough people here are on the list, which is the only thing that decides the order.
Landmarks inside or bordering the radius: 18th Street, Vermont Street crooked block, McKinley Square, Jackson Playground, Potrero Hill Recreation Center.
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 Potrero Hill list together.
Near Potrero Hill
Other San Francisco neighborhoods
Questions
- Is there an IRL club in Potrero Hill 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 Potrero Hill list is what decides whether and when a club opens here.
- How much does the Potrero Hill 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 Potrero Hill 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 Potrero Hill 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 Potrero Hill 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.