NYC social clubs are on the rise as users ditch dating apps.
Written for Columbia Journalism School
In April of 2023, seven friends sat in the back room of a New York City dive bar, engrossed in spirited battles of a centuries-old board game. It was the first meeting of the then-fledgling NYC Backgammon Club, now the largest organization dedicated to the game in the United States, boasting a regular mailing list of over 3,300 people. The group was founded as a casual way to meet new people in a city teeming overwhelmingly with unfamiliar faces.
Activity-driven social clubs have been on the rise in New York City after the COVID-19 pandemic limited access to “third spaces,” or social environments separate from home or work. But recently, an uptick in the emergence of these groups has been attributed to dating app fatigue.
In fact, social clubs across the country have caught the attention of the popular dating app Hinge, which in January of 2024 created the One More Hour fund to help “fight the loneliness epidemic” in Gen Z. The fund awarded grants of up to $25,000 to dozens of social groups across LA, New York City and Atlanta.
“Hinge recognized how many people are going off the apps,” said Remington Davenport, founder of the NYC Backgammon Club, which received one of the grants earlier this year. “People are moving towards the third space and so they’re trying to pivot their whole strategy.”
The club hosts a weekly no-experience-needed game night with the motto “Come for backgammon. Leave with new friends.”
Davenport herself facilitates each partnering in the weekly event, introducing members to one another and setting up 15-minute games that she says are “definitely not speed dating, [but] an easier way to get to know someone.”
Still, Davenport does hope to foster romantic relationships. “I’m constantly moving people around so that they are forced to meet new people," she says. "I’ve set up three couples that way.”
Another one of Hinge’s grant recipients, Girls that Gather inc., partners with Electric Shuffle, a high-tech shuffleboard cocktail bar in NoMad.
The activity-driven venue is a hub for social clubs without an address. Since it opened in July, Electric Shuffle has hosted single dating events through JigSaw and Met Through Friends, as well as community events for Girls that Gather and various run clubs.
“Having an activity avoids that awkward standing around when meeting new people,” said Christoper Houston, Electric Shuffle’s director of marketing. “It's nice to see people wanting to return to good old fashioned coming together in really interesting places to have a great time together.”
Young people in New York City are finding their way back to meeting people in real life, and activity-driven clubs help do so.
“We’re trying our best to have people off their phones and connect back in person,” said Nicholas Collins, the guest experience manager at the Lawn Club, an indoor/outdoor lawn space and bar that opened in the Seaport district last November.
The Lawn Club features outdoor games like bocce, cornhole, croquet, ladders, beersbee and kan jam in an enclosed grassed environment with TVs, lounge chairs, speciality drinks and pub food. Each lawn’s Lawncierge helps facilitate these games while keeping the party engaged with one another, instead of their phones.
“It’s been really cool to see," Collins adds. "If you’re pulling your phone out at all, you’re taking a video of your friend throwing a frisbee.”
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