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(Soho House)
Soho House, a members-exclusive club open in 27 locales across 10 countries, has opened its luxurious doors in Austin on Tuesday.
The Austin branch, located on South Congress' Music Lane, will become a new hub for creatives and socialites looking for a taste of Austin culture.
While the House has only provided renderings of the project, it has confirmed the club includes 46 bedrooms, a rooftop pool and a screening room. The club floor and rooftop pool opened today, while rooms will be available to book online once the hotel is complete later this summer.
Soho House's rooftop pool opened today. (Soho House)
Austin is the latest addition to a chain that has branches in New York, London, Hong Kong and more cities across three continents; Austin will be the first Texas location. While the Texas capital seems to be an outlier, CEO of local travel site, Localeur, Joah Spearman said that the newest Soho House is representative of Austin's "boomtown" status and its reputation as a cultural hub.
"While we don't have the diversity of some of these larger cities, like in LA or New York, we definitely have a lot of cultural capital here," Spearman said. "Soho House, I think, is going to be a place where creators... have a lot of that cultural exchange."
Spearman, who has been a member of the Soho House committee since 2017, said that interest has only been growing in the newest club. Unlike other exclusive hangouts in the city, Spearman said that admission to the Soho House will be based more on Austin creatives than on wealth.
"You get a good cross-section of people who work for startups, creative agencies, creative professionals, photographers, designers, DJs, musicians," Spearman said. "I really think that it's going to be a nice kind of connecting spot for creative professionals in particular in Austin. There are other membership clubs that have opened in Austin that I think are more based on affluence."
Joah Spearman, founder and CEO of Localeur, a travel site born in Austin, is a charter member of Soho House. (Localeur)
As a reflection of its emphasis on creativity, the Soho House will be located on 1011 S. Congress, Building 2, sandwiched in between music venues, iconic Austin eateries and more on South Congress' new Music Lane.
Bedroom rates start at $205 per night, while membership to every Soho House is $3,500 annually and membership to just the Austin Soho house is $2,290 annually. For those under 27, membership to every house is $1,750 annually and membership to just the Austin location is $1,140 annually.
Soho House was unavailable to be photographed at the time of publication, but Austonia will provide an update when available.
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(Pexels)
House Bill 1325, which was signed in June 2019 by Gov. Greg Abbott, and the Farm Bill, signed into law by former President Donald Trump in 2018, legalized any hemp product containing less than .3% THC. The same bills were thought to have made Delta 8 legal, though the Texas Department of State Health Services added a notice on its website saying it was still a controlled substance as of Friday, Oct. 15.
Both the federal and state governments keep separate lists on what is considered a controlled substance. Marijuana is considered Schedule I, a category reserved for substances with "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse," both statewide and federally.
Austin-based CBD retailer Grassroots Harvest CEO Kemal Whyte, like many CBD shop retailers, was blindsided by the announcement. Many small businesses rely on Delta 8 for their sales—Green Herbal Care CBD said about 90% of its sales come from Delta 8—and Whyte said he is frustrated by the inconsistencies in the drug scheduling system.
(Grassroots Harvest/Instagram)
Since 87% of Texans support the legalization of marijuana, at least for medical use, per a recent poll, Whyte said he wonders who this legislation is for.
"It's gonna have a massive impact on small businesses—there's just no way around it," Whyte said. "The reality is, we don't want to push out anything bad for our customers, we want this to benefit our customers and to help them. If we can make money while doing it, that's the American dream. What are we doing, whose benefit is this for?"
Delta 8 surged in popularity after the perceived legalization—consumers enjoyed its lower psychotropic potency, decreased anxiety while using it and the peace of mind as a legal way to get high. So in order to protect their products and livelihoods, both Grassroots Harvest and Austin-based manufacturer Hometown Heroes are taking legal action.
Whyte said Grassroots Harvest is suing DSHS, saying their action is creating negative effects in the market. Meanwhile, a Hometown Heroes spokesperson said the company is in the process of filing a temporary restraining order that would pause the ban on Delta-8 in the state of Texas.
Threats against Delta 8 are not new—DSHS lost a lawsuit trying to make "smokable hemp products" illegal last year and Texas lawmakers had been considering a bill that would make Delta 8 illegal, though it was dropped after the clarification was made.
Hometown Heroes released a formal statement in response to the DSHS rule.
"I need to be clear—we love Texas, we're just choosing to fight for the will of the people in regards to cannabis in Texas," Hometown Hero CEO Lukas Gilkey said in a statement. "(Texas DSHS) are using backhanded ways to create legislation and go against the will of the people."
Whyte laments the fact that it would be easier legally to "open up a strip club that also sells guns," and said he can't post customer testimonials that mention the benefits of Delta 8 without getting hit with a cease and desist from the Food and Drug Administration. Whyte said he isn't opposed to regulation—far from it—he just wants to see it go through the correct channels.
"The fact that they're stunting our ability to communicate with our clients that want to learn about this, you're preventing us from communicating with them and teaching them, or spreading information that we know," Whyte said. "I think that that in and of itself opens up a lot of questions."
Grassroots Harvest still has Delta 8 products on its shelves for the time being but for how long, Whyte doesn't know.
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