The Racquet Club, Philadelphia
Like all private members’ clubs, the Racquet club reflects its nation - large, lively, and obsessed with sport. I try to visit reciprocal clubs when abroad because they not only make life more comfortable, they let you into the habits and hobbies of the city’s upper crust - a different perspective from the usual pounding of pavements to and fro the mandatory tourist attractions. To give you a broad sense of the American club versus the British ones, which are essentially a grand country house in the city, last year we stayed at the Jonathan Club in Los Angeles which proudly boasted a sauna, steam room, full size basketball court, two-storey gym, a running track an full Olympic-sized swimming pool. The nearest my club in St James’s has to exercise are a couple of steep staircases.
Living up to its name, the Racquet club has six squash courts, one of only seven racquet courts, and one of only eleven “court” tennis courts, in the country. The latter is the original form of tennis dating back to medieval England which the club preserves with an in-house pro and regular international tournaments. I do however get the feeling that if you play real tennis, you’d be in the top 100 players just by virtue of playing the game. But if you do play, you may be in danger of having your picture adorn the club walls, exemplified by two fine gentlemen below, and you’d also benefit from the ability to sample the club’s self-service broom-cupboard pub with three resplendent draught beers for players to quench their thirst. I’m left in little doubt that the gent on the right made ample use of both court and pub.
For the last few days, I’ve walked over to the Racquet club after dropping Mrs B. at her work conference, the reason why we’re here in Philadelphia, and started the day with their complimentary breakfasts of coffee and croissants. It’s hard to go wrong with a cup of solid, standard coffee and plate of mini croissants and jam, and so after shovelling them away, I made my way up the club’s grand staircase and to their gym, sauna room, pool, and then the morning paper in the “locker room lounge”, making for an elongated and enormously relaxing routine. Despite the grandeur and comforts of their facilities, however, the most enjoyable part has been the shower.
Dating back to 1907, these showers are industrious, vast metallic structures that deserve a few words of admiration. To set the scene, two large steel pipes run down from the ceiling and supply hot and cold water to a third, which rises up the middle of them and back up to the ceiling and then across it in a right angle, before jutting down into two large discs slightly bigger than a dinner plate. Each disc is screwed together by screws that look at least as old as I am, and, through the hundreds of holes drilled into the steel, water is pumped at alarming velocity to the point the pipes begin to shake. Turning on the taps sounds like a cross between a Celtic war cry and the first hissings chugs of a industrial steam engine. Once the water starts flowing and starts pounding the aged tiles, standing under it feels like you’re in the middle of an endless waterfall. It likely uses as much water as one too, and between the tiled walls, noise of the pipes, and water crashing down over and around, it felt like being in the eye of a storm, and an enormous sense of calm swept over me. I could have stayed for hours.
A brief word on the food. On the first night, I sought relief from the beige fried food which is hard to escape in the States, and found the only vegetable on offer at their “grill” restaurant - a Caesar salad. It was simple and fresh with plenty of ranch, plenty of cheese, a few thin slices of fried bread chucked around for good measure, and it easily fell into the yeh-decent category of meal. The following lunch, however, I made the mistake of ordering a BBQ chicken flatbread with red onions and cilantro, which I optimistically presumed would make for a nice light lunch.
It was bad, laughably bad. Burnt, dry, bland - the only taste was BBQ sauce and the only thing fresh was the cilantro which had been tossed on last minute to try and make a transparently frozen meal slightly bearable. It was unsuccessful.
The Café itself however was lovely, and whilst it was quiet, very quiet, the vibe was cheerful enough and the members and the staff were all incredibly welcoming to the bumbling Brit wondering around their club, taking advantage of their facilities, and making increasingly regular use of their Languedoc Rosé.
More peculiar was the Reading Room. For perspective, clubs are renown for their libraries and the little nooks and crannies you can find to bunker down in for a good sit and a good read. The day’s newspapers will be in full supply, the weekly and monthly periodicals displayed on long, varnished wooden tables, and books and bookshelves littering the high walls like a wallpaper. Not so with the Racquet Club. The Reading Room was more like an upscale waiting room for the dentist, and sat between two event rooms like a chunky corridor. The red leather pouf’s were gratefully received, no doubt, but the leather on the sofa and was new, shiny, and showing none of the wear and tear that makes leather seating comfortable. Sans-comfort cracks, sitting in a Chesterfield feels like sitting down in a show room, and instead of sinking into it, you float uncomfortably high, unable to read or properly relax, creating instead quite a different feel from the second-home-vibe of a club.
Taken together though, I thoroughly enjoyed my mornings at the Racquet club - it was warm, welcoming, and endearingly hapless in a way that the best clubs are. Importantly, there’s a clear uniting thread running through the club and they’ve managed to preserve a sense of history and tradition alongside its ongoing focus on sport and athletics.
Food 3/10
Service 9/10
Vibe 9/10
Overall 7/10