Jun 9, 2004 12:51 PM
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New York, 8:07 AM
Tue Feb 9
55 posts in the last 24 hours
A reader writes for advice about the member-ship only "hotspot" Soho House. We're always more than happy to offer advice, whether we're right or wrong:
I'm a member of Soho House. I too would like to flounce out of the club, as you just have, but I don't think anyone would notice. Anyway, I'm not writing to complain about the English food, or the swarms of PR women who have descended on the club from Gramercy Park to find a snaggle-toothed husband. My problem is the cost.
In the bar on the Sixth Floor, the server always asks for a credit card. I suppose they're worried that the guests will do a runner. Somehow, I end up giving mine. Each time, I end up with a bill for several hundred dollars, and a cash contribution from other drinkers for about half that. Help!
Well, gentle (and evidently wealthy) reader, we never had this problem ourselves. The Soho House waitrons usually stared dumbfounded at me when I would say, "Here, it's a debit card!" on the few occasions I was forced to actually produce a card. It's the equivalent of smoking menthol — when people want to bum a cigarette, they'll evacuate when you flash them your Newports.
But clearly: someone must pay the bill. But equally clearly, each visitor to Soho House should ask: why should it be me? I've seen three common ways to avoid the card-drop: 1. Recognize obnoxious British friend across bar, don't return from visiting until you spy that someone has coughed up a card. 2. Go immediately to the crapper and don't return until you've cadged enough coke that you feel you've made profit and you don't care if you do pay for dinner, and 3. Simply stare blankly at your fellow diners until they proffer a card. (Seriously — it works. The old crazy routine gets 'em every time.)
But this is Manhattan: some were born to drink for free, and others were born to pay. If you are a payer, then it is your duty to pay. This is why you have friends. It's not that we, the non-payers — the remoras, if you will — don't respect the payers. We may very well need you more than you need us.
Still you must pay — so you might as well pay happily, secure in the knowledge that you've made life cheaper for the rest of us.
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