Seattle
A neighborhood club for Maple Leaf
A hill above Northgate with a reservoir park on top and views in two directions. $49 a month, and everything inside at a 10% mark-up.
Maple Leaf is a hill with a park on the crown of it where the reservoir used to sit open. Roosevelt Way and Fifth Avenue NE carry most of the traffic and most of the storefronts, and there are not many of either. Maple Leaf has the population for a neighborhood club and currently nothing that functions as one after five in the afternoon.
What going out in Maple Leaf costs
The nearest dense cluster of bars is a bus ride or a long walk away, so people here either make a night of it elsewhere or order delivery. Delivery is the quiet budget killer: fees, service charge and tip add forty percent to a twenty-dollar meal, several times a week. That is a membership and then some. IRL replaces the fee stack with a flat $49 and food priced at cost plus ten percent, which puts dinner around eight dollars.
| Per week | In Seattle | At IRL | Saved / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekday coffee (5 a week) | $7 | $3 | $87 |
| Lunch out (2 a week) | $19 | $6 | $113 |
| Drinks (4 a week) | $17 | $4 | $225 |
| Dinner out (1 a week) | $28 | $8 | $87 |
| Monthly total | $732 | $270* | $462 |
*Includes the $49 monthly membership. Menu prices only, before tax and tip in the Seattle column, which is where the real gap gets wider. Annual difference: $5,543.
Nothing on that list is extravagant. Five coffees, two lunches, four drinks and one dinner is a quiet week. At Seattle prices it still comes to $732 a month, which is $5,543 a year more than the same week costs at cost plus ten percent.
Join the waitlist
Get a club in Maple Leaf
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 Maple Leaf
Maple Leaf gets a lot of first-time buyers and young families who moved north because the rest of the city priced them out. They arrive knowing nobody and discover the neighborhood has plenty of sidewalk and very little gathering. The park on the hill is the closest thing to a commons, and it is weather-dependent. A membership club is the indoor version, with hours that do not depend on it being dry out.
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 Seattle.
Where a Maple Leaf 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 Seattle club is planned for Wallingford. Maple Leaf opens when enough people here are on the list, which is the only thing that decides the order.
Landmarks inside or bordering the radius: Maple Leaf Reservoir Park, Roosevelt Way NE, 5th Avenue NE, NE Northgate Way.
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 Maple Leaf list together.
Near Maple Leaf
Other Seattle neighborhoods
Questions
- Is there an IRL club in Maple Leaf yet?
- Not yet. Every neighborhood starts as a waitlist, and the first Seattle club is planned for Wallingford. We open a neighborhood once enough people who live nearby have signed up, so the Maple Leaf list is what decides whether and when a club opens here.
- How much does the Maple Leaf 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 Maple Leaf member actually save?
- On a normal week of five coffees, two lunches, four drinks and one dinner, Seattle menu prices come to about $732 a month. The same week at IRL is about $270 including the membership, a difference of roughly $5,543 a year before tax and tip.
- Do I have to live in Maple Leaf 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 Maple Leaf 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.