Gen Z has more access than any generation in history and trusts it less. Every restaurant, every artwork, every person is one search away, which means scarcity no longer signals anything – and a generation raised on infinite choice has learned to read abundance as noise. The easy conclusion is that they have withdrawn: sober, screen-bound, done with going out.
The data says the opposite. They still drink, still gather, still spend – they have simply grown ruthless about why, where, and with whom. What they are short of is not access but editing.
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That’s the misread the sector keeps making, and it’s an expensive one. “Exclusivity was always a proxy,” says Copper Beech founder Matt Hobbs. “What a Gen Z member is really buying is belonging, privacy and the confidence that what they are experiencing is real.”
The private members’ club, of all things, turns out to be built for exactly that – which is why developers are now underwriting clubs as the identity, pricing anchor and community of their super-prime schemes.
The catch is that this wealth is concentrating in precisely the cities where those schemes are being built, and it arrives with a fixed expectations the inherited club model was never designed to meet. Get the read wrong, as Hobbs says, and the young “simply never came.”
Copper Beech: Clear-eyed club consultancy
Copper Beech imagines, creates, operates and nurtures destinations intended to define culture and hold value over time. Founder and chief executive, Hobbs, has spent decades inside the buildings that wrote the modern template.
He led the management buy out of The Groucho Club and the original Soho House New York team, having launched the restaurant with Nick Jones, and has since worked on The Pembroke, Town Hall and the new Kensington Roof Gardens. Hobbs is now leading global launches including 1010 Club in Vietnam, along with further projects in North America, Switzerland and the UAE
That range matters, because the questions developers are asking have moved beyond design and covers. It’s now about whether an annual membership structure survives contact with a generation that has never paid for anything this way; if wellness is an amenity or the core product; and whether the bar remains both the commercial and social engine of the club.
Hobbs’s answers are not the ones the sector’s own marketing tends to give. He argues that the greatest threat to established clubs is not competition but “irrelevance dressed as heritage”, and that the most valuable floor in a club built today would be the one where you can recover.
Exploring Gen Z behavioural shifts and the club
Q What are the core behavioural drivers that now define how HNW Gen Z engages with private clubs, beyond the usual “exclusivity” buzzwords?
A Gen Z has grown up with infinite access; every restaurant, every artwork, every person is one search away – the scarcity no longer equals access. They want a feeling of discernment and the reassurance that someone with taste has already done the editing. There are three key drivers to highlight:
Belonging over networking: Gen Z do not want a Rolodex of random connections, they want a room where they are known.
Privacy as the ultimate status: The un-photographed evening is now the luxury, because they have spent their whole lives performing.
A reason to do something: Gen Z is a generation that interrogates why it’s doing something. This is the reason why a club can no longer be an old panelled room with a wine list. A club has to earn its place in a life that has already been optimised.
Q How are privacy, curated taste and experiential identity translating into concrete design and programme choices?
A Privacy means fewer, better spaces and a genuine no-phones, no-photography culture – not a sign on the wall but a room designed so that nobody reaches for a camera. Curated taste means the curation is visible in the things a member cannot get elsewhere: the art is bought, not licensed; the chef has a point of view, not a franchise.
Experiential identity means the programme is the product – a supper with an artist, access to a maker, a table you could not otherwise book. We increasingly design the calendar before we design the floor plan, because for the Gen Z member the events are the reason to belong and the room is simply the setting they happen in.
The financial & commercial proposition
Q What fee structures and membership models are proving most effective for attracting HNW Gen Z without compromising financial sustainability?
A
There is often a temptation to introduce more tiers, day passes or pay-as-you-go options, but that can weaken the sense of commitment. What tends to work better is a clear core membership, with a meaningful joining fee, and flexibility built around how members use it – through reciprocity, travel and access across cities.
The key is not to make membership cheaper, but more relevant. Price still signals value, so clubs need to be disciplined about who they are for, while giving members more freedom in how the club fits into their lives.
Q How do you advise clubs to articulate the value of membership for Gen Z beyond “networking” and “dining”?
A
I would move away from talking about ROI. The real value is time, trust and belonging. A good club makes life easier: the right table, introduction or recommendation is already there.
It also gives members a trusted filter in a world of endless choice, and perhaps most importantly, a place where people know their name and they feel part of something.
The US Surgeon General’s 2023 advisory on loneliness found in-person time with friends fell from around 30 hours a month in 2003 to about ten by 2020 – and fastest among the young. A place that reliably gives you people, in person, who know your name is not an amenity – it’s close to a health intervention.
“For a century the club and the bar were the same thought: you joined somewhere in order to drink somewhere. That link is breaking… Yet the lazy version is the young have gone teetotal. The latest industry research says the opposite.”
Q From a commercial perspective, which spaces, services or revenue streams carry the strongest perceived value for Gen Z members?
A
Global reciprocity is hugely valuable. Younger members travel frequently and want to feel recognised wherever they are. Soho House demonstrated that members are paying for the network they can carry with them from city to city.
After that: genuine programming, meaning access to people and experiences that money alone cannot buy; and private dining, which is quietly the most profitable and most defensible thing a club does, because it is belonging you can charge for by the evening.
Q So, what is alcohol’s future for a generation whose club experience doesn’t hinge on consuming it?
A The traditional reliance on a busy, alcohol-led bar is becoming much less relevant – but not for the reason the sector assumes. This is a repricing of alcohol as the organising principle of social life.
For a century the club and the bar were the same thought: you joined somewhere in order to drink somewhere. That link is breaking.
The lazy version is that the young have gone teetotal. The latest industry research says the opposite: Gen Z now drinks at almost exactly the adult rate – around three-quarters of them – and is more likely than any other cohort to drink cocktails, and to drink in company. The generation drinking least is now the Boomers. What is falling, across every generation, is how much people drink on a given occasion. Moderation has become the default rather than a youth movement.
So the question is no longer whether members drink – it’s whether drinking is still the reason they came. Increasingly it isn’t, and that moves the centre of the club towards food, wellness, culture and company. It’s a much bigger shift than adding a few non-alcoholic options to the menu.
Amenities, design & location
Q How do you think about location for a Gen Z HNW target – city centre versus suburb, creative districts versus financial hubs?
A II would not automatically assume that a younger member wants a warehouse in a creative district. They will travel for quality. The more important question is whether the club adds something meaningful to its location. The best clubs do not simply borrow from an interesting neighbourhood; they can help create one.
Q What design principles differentiate a “Gen Z-friendly” club from a traditional one – and how do you integrate wellness as a core rather than secondary amenity?
A
There are two principles. First, the space should feel as though it belongs to the member, not to the founder’s ego – less mahogany and portraiture, more a home that happens to be shared by people you would want to know.
Second, and this is the significant one, wellness has to be structural rather than bolted on. For years, the industry treated the gym and the spa as amenities you added at the end if there was space left. For this member, health is identity – it’s how they spend, how they socialise, how they measure a good life.
We ensure wherever necessary that wellness is part of the core offering, not an afterthought. Movement, recovery, nutrition, sleep and longevity increasingly shape how younger members live and socialise. For many, wellness is becoming a reason to join.
“What feels less relevant is the oversized bar as the centre of the club, along with some of the old cigar-and-brandy imagery. Younger members are generally looking for places that leave them feeling better, not worse.”
Q Which amenities are now non-negotiable for Gen Z HNW members, and which feel increasingly redundant?
A Non-negotiable: somewhere excellent to eat, somewhere to work that does not feel like an office, private dining, and a serious wellness offer. Clubs need to think seriously about the latest wellness amenities that have strong scientific research behind them.
Everything from the circadian lighting, the quality of the water and the sound tracks in the varying spaces. Increasingly non-negotiable is a real food-and-drink point of view that includes the people who are not drinking – which I will come to.
What feels less relevant is the oversized bar as the centre of the club, along with some of the old cigar-and-brandy imagery. Younger members are generally looking for places that leave them feeling better, not worse.
Q If you were designing a flagship club today explicitly for HNW Gen Z, what would be the one signature space that defines its identity?
A I would make it the recovery floor. Not the bar or even the restaurant, but a beautifully designed space focused on contrast bathing, breathwork, sleep and the real science of longevity. It reflects what this generation values and gives members a reason to use the club throughout the day, not only in the evening.
Global demographics & membership composition
Q How does the Gen Z membership profile differ between regions – North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia?
A There are clear regional differences. In Asia, younger HNW members are often extremely sophisticated consumers of design and wellness; we are experiencing this in our in-depth strategy and our operational plans in Vietnam.
In the Middle East, growth is fast, family networks remain important, and there is increasing interest in privacy, health and culture. In the US, the audience tends to be entrepreneurial and less tolerant of stuffiness – our strategy for our project in Washington is a great example of this. Europe has a stronger inherited understanding of club culture, which can be both an advantage and a constraint.
What is striking, though, is how consistent the underlying priorities are: privacy, wellness, taste and belonging.
Q What trends are you seeing in the professional backgrounds of HNW Gen Z members, and how are clubs adapting their outreach?
A
They are much harder to define by profession. You see founders in technology, consumer and creative businesses, the next generation of significant families, and influential people across food, design, art and culture.
I would avoid a formula, because casting a club by quota is how you kill it. Clubs therefore need to recruit by sensibility rather than industry. The founding membership should be curated almost like a cast. Get the people and the energy right first, and the institution grows from there.
“Older generations often joined a club as a sign that they had arrived. Younger members are more interested in whether they genuinely belong. That changes the emphasis completely.”
From arrival to belonging
Q What is the single most significant difference between how Gen Z and older cohorts perceive the purpose of a private club?
A Older generations often joined a club as a sign that they had arrived. Younger members are more interested in whether they genuinely belong. That changes the emphasis completely. It becomes less about the address, the crest or being seen, and more about whether you feel known and have people you actually want to spend time with.
A club built for arrival optimises the entrance and the member list. A club built for belonging optimises whether, on a wet Tuesday in February, you have got someone to have dinner with.
Q Where are the biggest cultural clashes between legacy traditions and Gen Z expectations around inclusivity, formality and social norms – and how do you manage those transitions?
A
The tension tends to sit around dress codes, formality and old assumptions about who belongs. Younger members are less impressed by exclusion for its own sake. That does not mean removing every standard.
It means being clear about which standards still matter: discretion, kindness, putting phones away and treating staff well. You can lose the tie without losing the values that make the club special.
Q How do you see the role of design changing over the next decade, particularly in how spaces communicate status, community and innovation?
A
Design will do more of the talking and less of the shouting. The 2010s club communicated status loudly – the signature staircase, the wall built for photographs, the design as content.
The 2030 club will be quieter, healthier and more private. Its focus will shift from the bar to wellness, and from visibility to recognition. The old model sold members a good night out. The new model will aim to improve their lives more broadly.
Status will be signalled by restraint and by things that cannot be copied: real materials, real art, real craft, the receipt for human time and attention that a mass-produced or machine-made space can never fake. As everything visual becomes infinitely reproducible, the un-reproducible room becomes the status object.
Q Where do you see the boundaries between private clubs, hospitality brands and lifestyle companies blurring, and how should clubs respond?
A Clubs will increasingly extend into residences, wellness, travel and global membership. That can be very powerful. The risk is becoming a lifestyle brand with a strong identity but no real sense of community. The club itself still has to come first. Build a place people genuinely love, and the wider brand can grow naturally from that.
Q What is the biggest risk for clubs over the next five years if they fail to adapt – and how would you redefine the core purpose of a club for the Gen Z era, in one sentence?
A
The biggest risk is irrelevance dressed as heritage. Clubs that mistake their traditions for their purpose, keep optimising the bar and the seat count, and wake up to find the young simply never came, because the whole model was built around a way of socialising this generation has walked away from.
Treating “we have always done it this way” as a strategy is how you age out with your members and not a principle we abide by.
We want to change the narrative – there is no one size fits all in any country or offering. For me, the purpose is simple: to create a place where people feel known, well and genuinely connected in a world that increasingly leaves them isolated.
