You’d be correct to assume that private social clubs in New York like the legendary Friars Club — most famous for its celebrity roasts — are experiencing declining membership. The main reason for that? Young people simply aren’t interested in them. But as a new Wall Street Journal piece notes, the Friars Club is undergoing some serious renovations in an attempt to woo millennials.
The club, which is housed in a 1908 mansion in Midtown, will reopen next year with “with casual dining, flexible workspace and a screening room,” the publication notes. “Its Billy Crystal barroom, which once served Borscht Belt stand-ups hard spirits, will operate in the morning as a laptop-friendly hangout with bagels and ‘a classically trained barista’ pouring signature Friars Coffee.”
However, don’t expect the Friars Club to be wholly converted into a coworking space. The club knows it still has to appeal to its older members.
“There were a lot of older people for whom the club was a second home,” Arthur Aidala, an attorney and vice president of the Friars Club, told the Journal. “It’s very hard to ask people in their 80s to worry about the future. They want their comfort zone. They want their steam room, their soup at lunch and their Chivas Regal at 5 o’clock. We are trying to be respectful of that while offering something for millennials.”
Still, it’s evident that some changes have to be made so that the legendary club doesn’t start to feel like a retirement home.
“The moment I walked through the doors and saw the dark wood and the marble, I knew I wanted to be a part of the Friars,” Mark Jigarjian, a 33-year-old stand-up comic and a member of the Friars Club, told the publication. “That said, my comedian friends aren’t going to go to the club and play pinochle. That’s just not going to happen.”
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