Brand Identity
A listening room & social club
New York City · 2026
“
To stay in a place longer than necessary because of a reluctance to leave.
”
The Problem
The third space is disappearing.
Manhattan already has two answers to this problem. Neither one is actually the answer.
Co-working spaces
Functional. Productive. Joyless after 5pm. Built for work — and nothing else.
vs
Exclusive social clubs
Beautiful rooms, real community — and a wall in front of all of it. Built to keep most people out.
Linger is the room where both things happen.
The Concept
Linger is a listening room and social club.
A room built around sound, craft, and the people who make it theirs. The further in you go, the better it gets.
Arrive.
Walk into a beautiful room. The bar is open, the room is warm. The night is just beginning.
Settle in.
The bar finds its rhythm. Craft cocktails, real food, conversation that stretches.
Go deeper.
The listening room. Vinyl, live acts, real parties. Loud, alive, and built to sound incredible.
Lose track of time.
Late night, every room alive. The kind of evening you do not plan and never forget.
The Experience
One room that keeps going.
One place with a single arc, from a calm afternoon to a night you did not see coming.
From noon
The Dining Room & Bar
The same bar pours serious coffee by day and craft cocktails by night, so the room is beautiful and comfortable enough to work in early and a full dining room and bar as the day turns. One kitchen, one bar, one room that never asks you to leave.
As night falls
The Listening Room
The deeper room. Vinyl and high-fidelity sound give way to live acts and real parties. Loud, alive, and built to sound incredible. Music as the intention, the whole night done right.
The Opportunity
Fastest-growing hospitality concept in a decade.
78%
of consumers now name a memorable, authentic experience as their primary social priority — up from 61% in 2020
340%
Growth in listening bar concepts across North America since 2019
$2.4B
Soho House valuation — what happens when a membership hospitality concept finds its audience
Brooklyn has its version. Tokyo and London have theirs. Manhattan has the density, the appetite, and the audience. It just needs the room.
Why Now
The window is open. It will not stay open.
Three forces are converging in Manhattan right now that make this the right moment to build Linger.
01
How people socialize has permanently shifted
People are more intentional about where they spend time and who they spend it with. Loud, anonymous bars are losing ground to spaces with personality and a reason to return.
02
People are choosing where they spend their time more carefully
New Yorkers are investing in fewer, better places, the rooms they return to and make their own. A venue with a real identity and a reason to come back captures that loyalty, and the membership model turns it into recurring revenue.
03
The right room changes how long people stay
When the atmosphere is right, people do not want to leave. A thoughtfully designed space with great sound, great drinks, and no pressure to move on is not a luxury. For a generation relearning how to spend time together, it is exactly what is missing.
Validation
The model is already working.
These venues proved people will pay to belong somewhere. Linger does the same thing without the wall — open rooms, optional membership, built for New York City.
Chasing Rabbits Closest analog
Social Club & Restaurant · Vail, CO
Open to everyone, with a membership layer on top. Multiple rooms, multiple moods, one destination. Members get VIP events, secret menus, and guaranteed reservations, but anyone can walk in. Eater-featured. Proof the open-plus-membership hybrid works and earns the spotlight.
Zero Bond
Private Members Club · NoHo
$4,000 per year. Long waitlist. Application-based. Zero Bond proved that Manhattan will pay significant money for a room that feels like it belongs to them. The barrier is the point for them. For Linger, the barrier comes down.
Spring Place
Members Club · Tribeca
Creative industry membership built around a beautiful space, strong food and beverage, and curated community. Spring Place proved the hybrid model: workspace by day, social club by night. Sound familiar.
Soho House
Global Members Club · Multiple NYC Locations
$2.4B in annual revenue globally. Less than 10% annual churn. Waitlists across every NYC location. Proof that the membership hospitality model is not a trend. It is a permanent, scalable business.
The Crowd
Linger attracts people who shape culture.
Every great room is made by who's in it.
The Core Customer
Age
Mid-20s to mid-30s
Who they are
Creative professionals with taste and disposable income
What they want
Belonging and real connection, not another anonymous bar
Where they are
Manhattan and the neighborhoods around it
They have the money and they spend it on going out
Affluent and established enough to spend freely, and a generation that consistently chooses experiences and time with people over things.
They are looking for a place that is theirs
This is the loneliest, most digital generation yet, and the one most actively seeking connection in real rooms. Belonging is the product they are buying.
They become the room
Taste-driven and socially connected, they bring their people, fill the room with the right energy, and tell everyone where they found it.
The Inspiration
The aesthetic we are building toward.
The Brand
We are not opening a bar.
We are building a brand.
The first Soho House was not valuable. The brand became valuable. Linger is designed from day one as a platform, not a venue — with New York City as the proof of concept.
Linger Today
- Flagship listening room & social club, New York City
- All-day café → craft cocktail bar → late-night programming
- Founding membership layer with curated access and benefits
- Resident selectors, live acts, and cultural programming
- The proof of concept in the hardest market in the world
Linger Tomorrow
Additional flagship locations
Membership network
Events & private dinners
Brand collaborations
Merchandise
Media & content
Listening session series
Travel experiences
The Model
Open to everyone. Built for those who want to stay.
Linger is a public dining room, bar, and listening room. No membership required to walk in, eat, drink, or stay. But for those who want to make it their place, there is a layer built for that too.
The Guest
Walk-in / Reservation
Walk in. Reserve a table. Experience the room on your own terms. No commitment required.
The Member
Monthly membership
Monthly food and drink credit equal to your dues. Priority reservations. Early access to events and programming before the room fills up.
The Founding Member
First 100 · Rate locked for life
First 100 members. Your rate is locked forever. Your name is in the room. The right to say you were there before anyone else.
Membership compounds. The longer you stay, the more it’s worth.
The Numbers
We understand the economics.
The space determines the rest.
The Raise
$250K – $2M
The range reflects the space. A lean build in a smaller room, or a full flagship. Both models work. The capital requirement follows the opportunity.
Where It Goes
Space & Build-Out
55%
Pre-Opening Operations
20%
Launch Programming
15%
Working Capital
10%
The Vision
What five years looks like.
Restaurants don't scale · Hospitality brands do · Membership brands really do
Years
1
Open the room.
Secure the space. Launch founding membership. Listening sessions and pop-ups prove demand. Doors open in New York City.
2
Build the brand.
The room finds its rhythm. Cultural programming, resident selectors, live acts. The membership layer grows. Linger becomes a name people know.
3
Expand the model.
Second flagship location. Membership network crosses cities. Brand collaborations, private events, and cultural partnerships begin in earnest.
4–5
Become the platform.
Multi-city presence. Linger is a recognizable cultural brand — media, content, travel, and a membership network that lives beyond any single room.
The Founder
I want to build the next big hospitality brand.
Linger was not designed at a desk. It was built from years on the floor — running rooms, reading the crowd, and developing the taste to know exactly what the right room feels like. The hardest thing to copy in hospitality is curation. Understanding who belongs in the room, and making them feel it. That is what I have spent my career learning, and what I am building this around.
Ethan Dean — Founder & Operator
5
Years in hospitality — every role, every shift, every kind of room
2
Venues under active management, Tara Rose Restaurant Group
$8M
Combined annual revenue across both venues. High volume, high standard, every night
The Ask
We are looking for partners who believe what we believe.
That the most valuable hospitality brands are built around belonging, not just food and drink. That the room is the start — and the start of something that scales. We are building the repeatable system for creating rooms people emotionally attach themselves to.
Investment
Founding round
now open
now open
Founding Membership
First 100 members
rate locked for life
rate locked for life
Strategic Partnership
Real estate, networks,
and introductions
and introductions
hello@linger.nyc · linger.nyc
Investment and founding member interest available on request.
Investment and founding member interest available on request.