A Global Pandemic Could Be the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Soho House

I’m intrigued with the modern version of a country club. I think of concepts like Soho House or the Wing as “urban country clubs”. These membership businesses gather communities of like-minded people. They create repeat traffic and have demographic and psychographic desirability in their members. These communities are powerful because if they endor... See more

We seem especially primed for it now. Once Covid-era restrictions began to be loosened and people started hosting gatherings again, many were restless after extended periods of isolation. Many wanted to socialize, meet new people, and be in community with others. The fervor toward branded community has yet to subside and is only ramping up, especia... See more

At Maxwell we’re trying to reframe social clubs to be around this idea of inclusive exclusivity - you may not be able to get into the Soho Maxwell, maybe it’s full or you just aren’t friends with those people. Or maybe you can’t afford it, but that’s ok because we’re creating a system within which multiple Maxwells can be started at various price p... See more

what’s happened during the COVID era as the continuation of a trend that began in the middle of the 20th century. When city dwellers were largely confined to crowded tenements, they were forced out into the world, which often meant hanging out with strangers in taverns. But as time went on, leisure became privatized. Living conditions improved; peo... See more

Even prior to the pandemic, these institutions were shuttering, according to research. As Americans spend more time alone and practice individualized forms of leisure, like marathoning television series on streaming services and passively scrolling on social platforms, they aren’t gathering communally as often as they were in decades past — a shift... See more