Allison Schrager, Columnist

Soho House Was Never Meant to Be So Public

The business strategy of the members-only club is more suited to the private market.

August 19, 2025 at 4:00 AM UTC

Allison Schrager is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering economics. A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, she is author of “An Economist Walks Into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk.”

Now even more private.
Photographer: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images North America

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Soho House & Co. made it official Monday: Its ownership will now match its membership, which is to say that both will be private. It may well be for the best, as the members-only business model may not be well suited for public markets — but the timing could be awkward.

Let me explain. Soho House, where I am a member, has always aspired to be a little edgy. Don’t even try wearing a suit and tie there; it once purged its membership of people who worked in finance. In 2021, in those hazy, heady days coming out of the pandemic, Soho embarked on a major expansion. After starting out as a members-only club in London in 1995, by the 2020s it was opening in cities across the world — even in places like Portland, Oregon.