<![CDATA[Cafe Society]]>

<![CDATA[Cafe Society]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jpkd!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2607b5b0-8082-45c3-a599-6d529d7b4073_800x800.pngCafe Societyhttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.comSubstackMon, 01 Jun 2026 02:23:31 GMT<![CDATA[Take People Out Of Their Community To Build Community]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/take-people-out-of-their-communityhttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/take-people-out-of-their-communityWed, 08 Apr 2026 13:03:18 GMTOur Spring Cohort is wrapping up — it’s not too late to apply for membership!

Apply To Join Maxwell!

Every year we’ve done a Maxwell summer camp upstate.

Last month Maxwell members independently organized a ski trip without any help from our team.

Each time we do something like this we hear rave reviews of the bonding that happens and members bring those relationships back into the club and show up more often.

But while I’ve recognized the value of retreats, I have not always viewed them as a core part of the organism, the ecosystem, that we’re building at Maxwell.

I’ve admittedly at times rolled my eyes at organizations that are based on taking you out of your community to build community…

Read more here!

David, Joelle & The Maxwell Team

]]><![CDATA[In Defense Of Cliques]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/in-defense-of-cliqueshttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/in-defense-of-cliquesWed, 01 Apr 2026 13:32:24 GMTWe’re finishing up our Spring Cohort drive, if you’re interested, apply here!

Apply for Membership!

Recently a member churned.

When I told another member who had met him, his response surprised me.

“Not surprising — it never really seemed like he found his people.”

I realized he was right — while an overall conceptual fit for the community, he hadn’t attended enough events, been integrated into the right groups that he may have gotten along with and it was clear he hadn’t really developed a group of friends within Maxwell.

He hadn’t fallen into a clique…

Read more here!

If you’d like to find your clique within Maxwell, apply for our Spring cohort here!

Apply for Membership!

David, Joelle & The Maxwell Team

]]><![CDATA[Communities Are Organisms — No One Organ Is More Necessary Than The Others]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/communities-are-organisms-no-onehttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/communities-are-organisms-no-oneThu, 26 Mar 2026 13:03:34 GMTWhen we first started Maxwell we kept on changing our mind on what was most important — was it investing in one regular monthly event everyone really wanted to come to?

Should we go all out to make sure an average member was in the space once a week?

Or was the important thing that members were able to use the space for their own hosting and that they felt empowered?

Should we make sure our members had a place to go for their most important “special moments,” i.e. New Years Eve, Halloween, etc.?

Was it the small intimate dinners where people had real convos that were important, or was it the once a year big retreats, or regular co-working days.

Should the dinners be more focused around interests or more focused on getting people to be vulnerable and connect in an emotional way?…

Read more here!

If you want to learn more about the organism/ecosystem we’re building at Maxwell, apply for membership, our Spring cohort is wrapping up!

Apply for Membership!

David, Joelle & The Maxwell Team

]]><![CDATA[Cheers Where No One Knows Your Name]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/cheers-where-no-one-knows-your-namehttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/cheers-where-no-one-knows-your-nameTue, 04 Nov 2025 16:39:45 GMTDespite being a members club, Maxwell’s primary revenue stream is not membership — it’s private events. We’ve hosted everyone from Blake Lively for a Betty Booze launch to Manchester City Football Group for a FA Cup Watch Party and our very own Flavors of Football Club World Cup event, to two Tonys Parties with CAA to an influencer evening with Snapchat and Amazon Prime’s The Girlfriend launch party with Robin Wright and more.

These nights are very lucrative — in one night we can make more off of an event than we’ll make off of membership fees all month.

So occasionally I field the question of why don’t we just turn the club into a permanent event space — why bother with members at all?

Read more here!

The Maxwell Team

]]><![CDATA[2nd Homes Are For Hangs]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/2nd-homes-are-for-hangshttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/2nd-homes-are-for-hangsTue, 06 May 2025 19:30:33 GMTApplications to the Summer ‘25 Cohort are open, apply to join!

I get asked a lot what my favorite event at Maxwell has been. I used to talk about the 80’s Apres Ski party with a cover band or about our intimate dinner series/salons, but recently I realized my favorite event is a non-event — just hanging out with the close friends of mine who are members.

On some level we understand that 2nd homes are made to be lived in, not “attended” — The fantasy of Friends was Central Perk where they spent most of their time just hanging around shooting the shit . . .

Read more here!

Central Perk Is Real! You Can Hang Out at Friends' Coffee Shop

Slowly but surely we’re creating our own Central Perk/MacLarens, and for those of you who are looking for their own 2nd home, applications for Summer ‘25 Cohort are open!

Apply to Summer '25 Now!

David & The Maxwell Team

]]><![CDATA[Zuckerberg's OnlyFans for Friendship Future]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/zuckerbergs-onlyfans-for-friendshiphttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/zuckerbergs-onlyfans-for-friendshipFri, 02 May 2025 18:54:25 GMTThis week Mark Zuckerberg opined on the loneliness epidemic:

“The average American has fewer than three friends,” he said. “The average person has demand for meaningfully more, I think it’s like 15 friends or something.”

His solution? AI friends! Fake friends!

The world will adjust to the demand for AI friends, he said, and we will “find the vocabulary as a society to be able to articulate why that is valuable and why the people who are doing these things, why they are rational for doing it and how it is adding value for their lives.”

Meta CEO says society will adjust to new normal of AI companions

I had to laugh.

It reminded me of some of the early pushback I got when we started working on Maxwell during the pandemic…

Read more here!

If you don’t want to live in a world where an AI friend is psychologically jacking you off feel free to apply for our Summer cohort!

gatsby: How a Leo DiCaprio meme turned 'The Great Gatsby ...

David & The Maxwell Team

]]><![CDATA[Fraternities, Not Private Clubs]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/fraternities-not-private-clubshttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/fraternities-not-private-clubsMon, 03 Mar 2025 15:20:11 GMTWhen we first launched Maxwell I was scared of the stereotypes & analogies we might evoke. There were so many potholes our narrative could hit — if we said it was like a secular synagogue someone might go “so you’re like a cult?!” I hated answering the questions about how no, our private club was not like Anna Delvey’s art foundation, thank you very much!

But no fear ranked higher than the one of being pegged as “overgrown frat boys.”

So I avoided all analogies that could be possibly link us to college Greek life. I thought it was the kiss of death for attracting the type of down to earth, intelligent and conscientious people we wanted to have as members, and to growing a serious organization that we hoped one day would scale worldwide…

So we stuck to private club analogies. We were the REAL private club, not like these gated restaurants or glorified co-working spaces. Private clubs how they USED to be, back in the day, but without the racism and sexism and antisemitism and without, without . . . etc…

Read more here!

So if you want to join an adult (co-ed) fraternity, applications are open for Spring ‘25 and we’d love to hear from you!

Apply to the Spring '25 Cohort!

And as always, follow along on Instagram for regular updates!

David, Kyle & Joelle

]]><![CDATA[The New Yorker Centoonial Party]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/the-new-yorker-centoonial-partyhttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/the-new-yorker-centoonial-partyMon, 24 Feb 2025 20:03:05 GMTA few months ago my brother became a New Yorker cartoonist, and a couple weeks ago he called me up with a proposal — in celebration of the 100 year anniversary of The New Yorker, the cartoonists wanted to throw a party. Would we like to host it?

It was a quick “fuck yes” and last Saturday our members and legendary cartoonists, some of whom had been cartooning for almost 50 years, mixed and mingled and watched a standup comedy routine in our living room.

As a thanks for hosting they made us our very own Maxwell cartoon and all signed it . . .

Read more here!

And the cartoonists conducted an Elsa Maxwell trained seal inspired live caption contest for us as well.

We’re launching our Spring ‘25 cohort soon, so. . . .

Apply for Spring '25 Cohort

David, Kyle & Joelle

]]><![CDATA[Barriers Are Beautiful]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/barriers-are-beautifulhttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/barriers-are-beautifulWed, 18 Dec 2024 17:26:06 GMTA few weeks ago the sports writer Joe Pompliano wrote a post on LinkedIn about how hard it is to become a member at the golf course Augusta. Membership is limited to 300 people and only opens up when someone gives up their membership or dies, and they apparently just accepted 3 new members, Eli Manning and the CEOs of CBS and Amazon. Rules include no backwards hats and if you play the course you must play with an existing member. Even Tiger Woods, as only an “honorary member” cannot use the course by himself.

There is the obvious reading of this — people always want what they can’t have, to get past a velvet rope…

Read more here!

Things you may not have known about The Masters and Augusta National By Dave Daubert

If you’d like to work for it, membership applications are open.

Join The Club

And follow along on Instagram for regular updates.

Cheers,

David, Kyle & Joelle

]]><![CDATA[Why I'm Long Division 5 European Football Teams]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/why-im-long-division-5-european-footballhttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/why-im-long-division-5-european-footballFri, 06 Dec 2024 14:24:12 GMTIn the past 5 or so years there has been a stunning trend of Americans buying into little known European soccer teams. The most famous of course is Wrexham.

Watch Welcome to Wrexham | Full episodes | Disney+

Rob McElhenney of Always Sunny in Philadelphia fame teamed up with Ryan Reynolds to revitalize a Welsh soccer team that was once in the Premier League but had fallen on hard times and dropped 6 divisions — so far they were no longer in the official professional leagues (Europe has a promotion and relegation structure foreign to the U.S.).

Over three seasons the series documented Wrexham’s attempts at promotion back into the upper divisions but also stories in the local community — a group of fans that has a rock band, a disabled super fan, the people who work at the club, etc…

Read more here!

If you’ve enjoyed this article and want to find another, admittedly non-athletic, way of being part of something cool . . .

And follow along on Instagram for more regular updates.

David, Kyle & Joelle

]]><![CDATA[Is The Atlantic Lonely?]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/is-the-atlantic-lonelyhttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/is-the-atlantic-lonelyWed, 27 Nov 2024 15:57:36 GMTI’ve been pleasantly surprised at the rapid normalization of how we talk about friendship.

I graduated college in 2010 back when OKCupid was the most popular dating app. Online dating hadn’t been normalized yet so most of my female friends refused to join the apps, or admit that they did so, because they felt they were “hot enough to get hit on at a bar.” It took a few years before everyone realized that it didn’t matter how hot you were, finding “the one” was very difficult.

I feel like we’re in a similar place for “the ones,” now — friendship, and if you don’t believe me look no further than The Atlantic, which seems to realize that in addition to Trump, one of their highest performing topics is friendship…

Read more here!

We get it. We’re tackling it our own way at Maxwell by building our own campus with it’s own set of rituals, for *our* people.

If you’re curious, feel free to apply to . . .

Join The Club

And follow along on Instagram for more regular updates!

David, Kyle & Joelle

]]><![CDATA[The Mid-twenties Loneliness Realization]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/the-mid-twenties-loneliness-realizationhttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/the-mid-twenties-loneliness-realizationThu, 21 Nov 2024 15:24:59 GMTThe single most common story I hear in membership interviews is some version of the following.

“When I graduated college and moved into the city I had a ton of friends! I was invited to pregames and house parties every weekend and we had a crew of girls/guys, a group chat, and a regular cadence of hangouts. But by the time I was 25 that group started fragmenting. One friend got married, another had kids, another was promoted and was working 80-hour weeks, another just moved to Brooklyn. Now we get together maybe once every few months if we’re lucky and it’s really a struggle to do even that.”

We draft off of the college experience for years but we’re becoming more and more aware that our society is not built for consistent social interaction.

In fact one of the biggest lessons you learn leaving college is just how much work college was doing for you behind the scenes…

Read more here!

Join The Club

And follow us on Instagram for more regular updates!

David, Kyle & Joelle

]]><![CDATA[The Dinner Table Test]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/the-dinner-table-testhttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/the-dinner-table-testThu, 07 Nov 2024 15:18:33 GMTI’ve always struggled to answer the question of “what type of people do you accept for membership at Maxwell.” It’s a question setup to make us look like assholes. If you say anything remotely complimentary (they’re all super ambitious!) you seem like an elitist who doesn’t want to hang out with anyone who doesn’t meet your “standards.”

It’s also a genuinely hard question to answer — try to do it for yourself: in a sentence or two describe your friend group? Difficult, right? I’m friends with people for a variety of reasons ranging from shared ambition, shared experience (college), shared world view/sense of humor. Why you like someone can be hard to put into words.

But we’ve found one question works well as a starting point: do you want to spend 3 hours at the dinner table with this person?

Read more here!

]]><![CDATA[Building the Scaffolding of Contribution]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/building-the-scaffolding-of-contributionhttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/building-the-scaffolding-of-contributionThu, 31 Oct 2024 14:32:56 GMTThe most important question in the Maxwell membership application (here if you’re interested) is “How can you see contributing to Maxwell?”

But our early efforts at actually facilitating member contribution were a spectacular failure.

When we first launched, our member contribution strategy pretty much amounted to asking members who among them wanted to throw a party or event, and letting them do whatever they wanted.

Invariably this would result in disaster…

Read more here!

]]><![CDATA[What We Really Seek Is A Group Of Friends]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/what-we-really-seek-is-a-group-ofhttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/what-we-really-seek-is-a-group-ofThu, 25 Jul 2024 14:37:50 GMTI’ve been fascinated by our societies gradual evolution to admit, when it comes to loneliness, that we need help.

When I graduated university in 2010, several of my attractive female friends still adamantly refused to join dating apps — they thought the apps were for girls who weren’t hot enough to get approached at a bar. A few years later they were all on them — our society finally admitted to ourselves that it didn’t matter how hot you were dating was HARD. We ALL needed help.

I believe we’ve hit a similar turning point in how we view friendship…

Read more here!

As always, follow us on Instagram and apply for membership here.

David, Kyle, Joelle

]]><![CDATA[Expats, Jews & Founders]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/expats-jews-and-foundershttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/expats-jews-and-foundersMon, 15 Jul 2024 16:37:16 GMTToday’s post is a short one, more of an observation — I’ve noticed that there have been three early adopters at Maxwell: Expats, Jews and Founders.

Some of this is for obvious reasons — I’m a Jewish founder as is Joelle, and both Kyle and Joelle grew up in New Zealand and Germany respectively and I have EU citizenship — communities tend to be built around overlapping venn diagrams of similarities, so it isn’t exactly shocking that the identity of many Maxwell members overlap with our own.

But I think there is a deeper explanation other than just our personal identities — I think there is a reason that each of these demographics just seems to “get it” easier than others.

Read more here!

As always, sign up for membership here and follow us on Instagram here.

David, Kyle & Joelle

]]><![CDATA[Avoiding Faux-Intellectual Programming]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/avoiding-faux-intellectual-programminghttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/avoiding-faux-intellectual-programmingMon, 08 Jul 2024 14:00:53 GMTA couple weeks ago we cohosted a debate watch party with Open to Debate, formerly Intelligence Squared, for the first Biden vs Trump Presidential Debate. Open to Debate’s CEO Clea Connor, their long time moderator John Donvan and Reason Magazine’s Editor at Large Nick Gillespie commented on the debate during commercial breaks and discussed the expectations and results and feelings of the room. And most importantly, everyone got a commemorative T-shirt:

This was the latest in a huge effort we’ve begun at Maxwell to make our spot the center of intellectual discussion and high culture in the city.

I’ve previously written about how much I hate the faux intellectual and cultural programming that much of our city institutions engages in when I spoke about my cringe-worthy experience with Chainmail Breakdancing at The Met’s Apollo Circle.

Read more here!

As we grow we’ll continue adding more and more intellectually engaging partnerships to our programming, please reach out if you represent one of those types of orgs and have something creative you’d like to discuss, and as always, we’re looking for our own intellectual fellow travelers so apply for membership here, and follow us on Instagram here.

David, Kyle & Joelle

]]><![CDATA[The Loneliness Epidemic: Bundling & Unbundling Community]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/the-loneliness-epidemic-bundlinghttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/the-loneliness-epidemic-bundlingTue, 25 Jun 2024 13:15:12 GMTSomeone asked me recently what the most challenging part of starting Maxwell was. Was it the grueling construction process? Was it lasting through the pandemic? Operating a hospitality business with its requisite ups and downs?

No. The biggest challenge is that it is hard for most of our generation to comprehend what we are doing because if you are a millennial +/-10-20 years, you haven’t experienced a truly positive community model — most of us didn’t grow up in a small town, rituals around churches and synagogues were not as core to our generation’s upbringing, we didn’t have our prom after party at the local American Legion or Kiwanis club and our fathers weren’t part of a bowling league or the local Italian American Mens Club.

But our mind operates on schemas, X for Y, Uber for Groceries, and it’s hard to paint a picture using analogies without capturing many of the negative stereotypes attached to our formal community models as well…

Read more here!

If this intrigues you at all, throw us a membership application, we’re always keen to connect with people who have been searching for what we’re building.

Cheers,

David, Kyle & Joelle

]]><![CDATA[If You Aren't Paying, You Are The Product]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/if-you-arent-paying-you-are-the-producthttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/if-you-arent-paying-you-are-the-productFri, 12 Jan 2024 16:22:46 GMTWelcome to Maxwell’s kind-of-weekly newsletter! Today we’re diving into a toxic and frankly misogynistic nightlife dynamic that we had to navigate as we started Maxwell. As always, membership applications are here, follow along on Instagram here.

When we first started Maxwell an early question we had to ask ourselves was whether or not we’d have lower prices for women. I was told that women were used to drinking for free, and that it would simply be harder to convert women as members if we didn’t account for this societal reality.

The women drink free thing has always bothered me and reminded me of a famous saying in the tech industry usually attributed to Facebook and social networks: If you aren’t paying, you are the product…

Read more here!

Cheers,

David, Kyle & Joelle

]]><![CDATA[2023 Year In Review]]>https://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/2023-year-in-reviewhttps://cafesociety.maxwellsocial.com/p/2023-year-in-reviewWed, 03 Jan 2024 15:55:45 GMTAs 2023 comes to a close we’re super thankful for everyone’s support. We successfully finished construction in April and have built out an operations and bar team we can be proud of. We re-opened membership in November after a long pause and have accepted another cohort of members, our biggest ever, who we’re looking forward to getting to know in the new year (and we’re still accepting applications and will be for the rest of the year, so come on down).

Below are some of the highlights from the year and what we’re excited about going forwards.

Read more here!

Thanks for an amazing year, throw us an application and follow us on Instagram, and looking forward to meeting you in the new year.

Cheers,

David, Kyle, Joelle

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