The Groucho Club

The Groucho Club is a private members' club at 45 Dean Street in Soho, London, which opened on 5 May 1985 as an alternative to the formal St James's clubs and drew its early membership from publishing, media and the arts. It occupies a Soho building with bars, restaurants, a snooker room, an enclosed terrace, event rooms and bedrooms for members and their guests. Ownership has changed several times: Graphite Capital held it from 2006, a group led by Isfield Investments and Alcuin Capital Partners bought it in 2015, and Artfarm, the hospitality company of the gallerists Manuela and Iwan Wirth, acquired it in 2022 in a deal reported at £40 million. In November 2024 the Metropolitan Police applied for a summary review of the club's premises licence following an alleged rape at the venue; Westminster City Council's licensing sub-committee granted an interim suspension on 26 November and lifted it on 18 December 2024 after the club agreed additional conditions on member and guest admission, record-keeping, welfare training and supervision. Membership rates are published in four bands.

Cách thức hoạt động

Members use a single Soho clubhouse with bars, dining rooms, a snooker room and bedrooms, and can hire private event spaces. Applications are made through the club's online membership portal, which sets out four rate bands: under 35, London, Country and Overseas. Wikipedia records that applicants must be proposed by two existing members.

Thành viên điển hình

Historically writers, publishers, broadcasters, musicians and artists. The club publishes no occupational test on its public pages.

The Groucho is the cheapest club in this batch and the only one whose full rate card sits behind a plain online form: £1,500 a year for a London member over 35 and £880 for anyone 35 or under, with a monthly payment option and no joining fee shown. It is a creative-industries club rather than a business one, with no workspace offer and no professional programming, so its value to a working member is contacts rather than facilities. Two things deserve weight before joining. The 2022 sale to Artfarm put the club inside an art-world hospitality group and prompted concern among longstanding members about changes of tone, and the 2024 licence review resulted in binding new conditions on admissions, guest records and welfare after a serious incident on the premises. Both are matters of public record rather than rumour.

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