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New guard clubs, South of Fifth listings, Casa Morada, Sweat Records, Foursquare, Thanksgiving restaurant reservations, MORE
CLUBS • FOUND Guide
Clubs, new guard
With news of Soho House’s long-awaited Miami Pool House opening in Wynwood and a brand new members club in Sunset Harbour, we’re taking stock of Miami’s private club options. Here, part one of FOUND’s rundown.
Harbour Club (South Beach, above)
Membership: Likely fashionable South Beach locals and the Sunset Harbour fitness set at this just-opened newcomer
Amenities: Private cocktail lounge and restaurant, plush digs, dinner parties and special events, Italian restaurant A’riva open to the public
Fees: From $2500 annually, one-time initiation $5000
Soho Beach House (Mid Beach)
Membership: Every other person you’ve met on Miami’s social scene over the last decade — the other half are their guests
Amenities: Beach access, multiple pools, exclusive restaurants, spa with steam room, fitness classes, hotel rooms, screening room, social events
Best Perk: No-hassle access to the best parties during the most high profile events of the year — Art Basel, Winter Music Conference, New Year’s Eve
Fees: $2800 annually, one-time initiation ~$2000
Soho House Miami Pool House (Wynwood)
Membership: Soho Beach House spillover, mainlanders, and the arts crowd
Amenities: Pool, restaurant, health and tonic bar, stylish spaces indoor and out
Fees: From $2625 annually
The Standard Spa, Miami Beach (Belle Isle)
Membership: Hot, fitness-loving locals, with newcomers from New York and California finding their way strewn about
Top Perk: Unbridled access to the hippest pool scene going, plus the indoor-outdoor hydrotherapy playground, including stadium-style Turkish hammam
Amenities: Daily fitness classes, including yoga and Pilates, access to exclusive wellness events and membership dinners
Fees: $400-$575 per month, plus one-time initiation $1200
ZZ’s Club (Design District)
Membership: Young, moneyed, fashion crowd
Amenities: Exclusive Japanese restaurant (public can only dine on patio), cigar terrace, sports bar, lounge with musical programming by Major Food Group
Fees: $3500 annually, plus one-time initiation $10,000
Faena Rose (Mid Beach)
Membership: International jet set crowd
Top Perk: A cultural membership club with exclusive access to private performances, art exhibitions, panel discussions, wellness events, parties and curated travel experiences
Amenities: Access to Faena hotel and its surrounding district’s amenities, including beach, pools, spa, restaurants, bars, and more
Fees: ~$15,000 annually
1 Hotel Beach Club (South Beach)
Membership: Family-friendly scene with lots of kids running around; amenities are shared with hotel guests and condo residents
Amenities: Access to beach with chairs and umbrella, smaller cabana pool, spa, fitness center, and various wellness classes/events
Top Perk: Discount on hotel stays, dining, and spa
Fees: from $7500 annually. –Shayne Benowitz and Julia Grossman
Next week: Clubs, the old guard.
MIAMI RESTAURANT LINKS: LA’s Jon & Vinny’s popping up at Rubell Museum starting in early Dec • Zucca team planning to resurrect Hereford Grill and open big Italian food hall Zuccaly early next year • Don’t look now, but here come the Miami robochefs • What even is ‘American IPA’?
REAL ESTATE • First Mover
Three for-sale listings in South of Fifth that came to market in the last 30 days.
→ 300 Collins Ave #2E (South of Fifth, above) • 2BR/2BA, 1219 SF condo • Ask: $2.375M • fully furnished with wraparound terrace at Three Hundred Collins • Days on market: 3 • Annual taxes: $26,631 • Agent: Denise Dupesso, Intercapital Realty.
→ 300 S Point Dr #2201 (South of Fifth) • 3BR/3.1BA, 2340 SF condo • Ask: $5.3M • Jonathan Adler-designed at the Portofino • Days on market: 16 (and earlier) • Annual taxes: $43,521 • Agent: Peter Green & Daniel Henriquez, Fortune Christie’s.
→ 100 S Point Dr #3402 (South of Fifth) • 2BR/2.1BA, 1791 SF condo • Ask: $6.625M • newly renovated in the Continuum, panoramic views • Days on market: 6 • Annual taxes: $79,476 • Agent: Jorge Martinez, Sotheby’s.
MIAMI WORK AND PLAY LINKS: Massive 775-unit condo development Ombelle Fort Lauderdale launches sales • Amazon nears new office lease in Wynwood • MBA applications jumped 12% in 2024 • Should you be able to take a test to become an accredited investor?
WORK • Thursday Routine
Gone Hollywood
TADD SCHWARTZ • president & founder • Schwartz Media Strategies
Neighborhood you work in: Brickell & West Hollywood
Neighborhood you live in: Coral Gables & Laurel Canyon
It’s Thursday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
I love Thursdays. The weekend vibe is in the air, and as a company, we’re firing on all fronts. We’re in the storytelling business. I run Schwartz Media Strategies, a Miami-based integrated communications and public affairs firm, specializing in media relations, digital media, and content marketing on behalf of clients with a stake in Florida.
Currently, I’m in Los Angeles, where I have a home and live with my wife Jen and two kids, Siena and Sevi. I spend half my time here, and the other half in Miami. In LA, we live in Laurel Canyon, way up in the hills, so it’s a cool vibe that lends itself to a laidback lifestyle filled with rock 'n roll, coyotes, long hikes, slow runs, cool mornings, and breezy evenings. Today, like most days, I’m in Miami-mode. That means I’ve been up since 5a starting with my morning routine of reading the news, running or hiking around the canyon, and getting the kids fired up for the day.
What’s on the agenda for today?
We’re working over Zoom on a public referendum that will transform Watson Island, an underutilized destination in Miami. One of our banking clients is about to announce a partnership with a major university. Another client, a real estate developer, is delivering a mixed-use project that will change the face of Downtown Miami. We also have the privilege of doing pro bono work for Lotus House, a homeless shelter for women and children in Miami, and we’re getting ready to open a new building that will be centered around the needs of kids.
Any bar or restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
When I’m in Miami, my go-to spot is River Oyster Bar on Brickell. The draft beer is always ice cold, the seafood is fresh, and the bar scene is cool with an open air vibe. The owners kept a massive Johnny Cash poster from the original location, which was next to the OG Tobacco Road across the Brickell River. I also love Hillstone in the Gables. I lived and spent a lot of time on South Beach before marriage, and I still love hanging out in the South of Fifth area on the weekends. Joe’s take out, the boardwalk, the beach. That’s my speed.
How about a little leisure or culture?
The Institute of Contemporary Art in the Design District offers the best of Miami’s art scene. I also love the Margulies Warehouse in Wynwood. Both museums put Miami on the cultural map.
I’m gonna get nostalgic. I grew up in Miami in the ’70s and ’80s. The Dolphins and Canes at the Orange Bowl in Little Havana was the best show in sports. When both teams moved to the suburbs in Miramar, the home games lost their mojo. For me, the Heat have taken over the title as Miami’s best sports team. Heat games are a blast. With their stadium on the bay in the heart of downtown, it’s such a great vibe. Miami residents don’t realize just how important it is to have their downtown centrally located on the water.
Any weekend getaways?
I’m a beach guy, so when I’m in Miami, you can usually find me on South Beach or Hollywood Beach. My wife and I love the Keys. Thanks to my parents, I spent my childhood on trips there. We’ve driven down to Key West many times, and love to escape to Islamorada for a weekend at Casa Morada. Happy hour at Lorelei helps you ease on into the evening with a sunset that drips right off that oceanic cliff.
What was your last great vacation?
We just got back from Costa Rica. Our client Gencom owns Peninsula Papagayo. Miles and miles of beaches. Our kids said it was the greatest vacation under the sun — a bold statement. Skiing in Colorado (Breckenridge and Beaver Creek) is also up there. We’re easy. Mountains and beaches. That’s where it’s at.
What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
I just bought a baby blue and white Ford Bronco 1960s Heritage edition. The ultimate beach and canyon cruiser for the family and our labrador, Cali.
What store or service do you always recommend?
I’ve got a deep record collection — rock, soul, Brit pop, stuff going back to the 1960s to present day. Sweat Records is a killer record store for new vinyl — Lolo Reskin is a local treasure for keeping music on this format relevant and hip. Yesterday and Today Records in South Miami is the spot for original press and vintage vinyl records.
GETAWAYS LINKS: On Treasure Coast, Brightline expansion in limbo • American flying direct from MIA to Casa de Campo Resort in DR starting Dec 5… and launches boarding group enforcement tool • Costa Rica hotel El Mangroove debuts Autograph Collection residences • United unveils changes to 2025 premier status.
CULTURE & LEISURE • Top Five Season
Miami vs Duke football • Hard Rock Stadium (Miami Gardens) • Sat @ 12p • section 118, $109 per
Miami City Ballet: A Midsummer Night’s Dream • Broward Center (Ft Lauderdale) • Sat @ 730p • zone A1, $220 per
Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes • The Parker Playhouse (Ft Lauderdale) • Sun @ 7p • orchestra left, $35 per
WORK • Social
Foursquare and seven years ago
Saturday night, after we were seated at Le Veau d’Or on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, I checked in on Swarm and a tip popped up on my phone from Lockhart, my friend on the social app since back when it was called Foursquare.
After it launched with a bang in 2009, Foursquare was for a time the most exciting thing on the New York tech scene. It was both an A+ connector and a robust discovery tool, with reported nine-figure acquisition offers and buzz of a bust on social’s Mt. Rushmore.
In those very early days, Curbed sublet a table in our 3000-SF office to Foursquare when it was just two guys and a plan. In that open room with butcher block desks and wide columns, we watched them raise a ton of money and staff up in a blink. Soon, they’d take a whole floor in the building and sublet a corner back to us, flipping the script.
It was fun to be in the middle of it. Curbed raised an exponentially smaller amount and was finding its way to profitability piece by piece, by necessity. Foursquare was playing a different game. But the companies shared a lot of DNA — NYC projects run by real people, with an interest in enhancing how users engaged with their respective cities and spaces.
The Curbed team all got hooked on Foursquare immediately, checking in with each other at The Scratcher, The Mud Truck, and wherever else we went in the neighborhood and beyond. In 2014, when they split the app — into a city guide still called Foursquare, and Swarm for check-ins — we dutifully downloaded Swarm. Today, it contains an unbelievably rich history of the places I’ve been over the last 15 years. Sometimes I still get tips from Lockhart (he was right, Le Veau d’Or is reason enough to live in NYC!).
Last week, Foursquare sent an email to users announcing they were sunsetting the City Guide app on December 15. Fortunately, Swarm will live on, but the company has long since pivoted from its beginnings as a consumer social app to its current B2B data model. It never did get that place on app Rushmore, but it did find a way to generate enough revenue to make it through to the other side of the VC grinder.
In the meantime, social discovery remains an uncracked code. In fact, the state of restaurant discovery has progressed so little that Eater just launched a “new” app with "essentially the same functionality" as the first Eater app we launched back in 2013.
Maybe this is the decade someone will figure it out. Maybe it’ll be (Eater co-founder) Ben Leventhal with Blackbird, his ambitious new restaurant loyalty and payment platform. Or maybe it’ll be Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley, another serial builder of cool things, who’s working on a new audio city guide called BeeBot. Or maybe FOUND will take its trove of city-specific recommendations and intel, and build some tech ourselves.
Last week, Crowley lamented Foursquare’s sunsetting on Threads. Others chimed in with reminiscences and valedictories. It was a great run, but nothing’s forever. And there’s still a lot of 36 Cooper Square out there in the world, pushing forward on the next big thing. –Josh Albertson
ASK FOUND
First, a quick primer on how this works: You send us the pressing questions of the day (on dining, services, living in Miami and surrounds). We all put our heads together (us at FOUND, + you, FOUND subscribers, who are also FOUND) in search of truth and beauty.
Today, three FOUND subscriber PROMPTS for which we are seeking intel:
Where should we host our office holiday dinner this year?
What’s your favorite bookstore in Miami?
Which spa are you booking to escape the chaos of the season?
Got answers or more questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfoundmiami.com.
RESTAURANTS • The Nines
Thanksgiving, bookable
The Nines are FOUND's distilled lists of Miami’s best. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@itsfoundmiami.com.
Red Rooster (Overtown, above), Marcus Samuelsson’s family-style feast, options for fried or baked turkey, fried yardbird, fried catfish, smoked oxtail, $95 per, reserve