The Swan Map · Chicago · 6 rooms
Where to go outin Chicago.
The money is old, professional, and from here — so the city rewards becoming a regular and punishes nothing as much as being obviously new. Winter helps: the rooms get smaller.
Open to you right away
One room, given in full
The night, the hour the room fills with the people you came for, who is in it at that hour, and what an evening there actually costs. No sign-up, no email.
Hotel bar · The Loop
The Palmer House, Potter's lobby bar
A nineteenth-century lobby in the middle of the Loop, full at six with people who have just left an office in the same three blocks.
- When
- mardi, mercredi, jeudi · 5 – 7.30pm
- The check
- $25 to $55 for a drink or two.
- Getting in
- Walk in
Who is there
Loop professionals and a constant flow of business travellers. The travellers are the opportunity: they are in town for two nights, they know nobody, and they are in the lobby precisely because of that.
What to wear
A blazer and trouser, or a column dress with a coat you keep on your arm. Chicago dresses more soberly than either coast and notices overdressing. From November, a proper coat is not optional and is itself read.
How to walk in
Sit at the bar in the lobby rather than in a side room. The lobby is a thoroughfare, so people arrive, wait and leave constantly — nobody is anchored, and joining a conversation costs nothing.
To someone at the bar with a conference badge still on.
“You can take that off now, you know.”
It gets a laugh and it tells you they are from out of town. Then ask what the conference is actually for, which nobody ever asks them.
This room has not been visited in person for Swan Club yet. Call before you travel — and if you go, tell us what you found and we will correct the page.
In The Club
5 more in Chicago, where the people who decide cross paths
Memberships, invitations, rooms where the hour matters more than the address — fewer people, and more of the ones who count. You do not walk into these by accident. For each one, the same thing as above: the night, the hour, what to wear, and the first sentence.
Galleries
Michigan Avenue
Tasting
River North
Sport
Lincoln Park / Streeterville
Professional rooms
The Loop
Galleries
West Town / River North
The other cities
- New York6 rooms
- Miami6 rooms
- Los Angeles6 rooms
- Dallas6 rooms
Swan Club is coaching, not matchmaking. We introduce no one, we promise no one, and nothing here is a claim about what will happen to you.