A City Without a Club
Americans earlier this week were captivated by news of an Amazon Web Services outage. The outage rippled from internet chatter when people quickly realized that they couldn’t Venmo their friends for a night at the club or even order a salad from Sweetgreen. Large swaths of our economy being dependent on a single company’s technological offers seems rather … disturbing.
Nonetheless, that’s not the only outage that Clubland USA focused on this week. We stayed a bit closer to our lane as club cats and dived into the closure of the University Club of Phoenix, the last city club in the Desert Metropolis. Yes, you read that correctly — there’s not a single city club left in Phoenix, Arizona.
Yours truly spoke with Barry Aarons, the club’s former president, to bring this story to Clubland USA readers. Ishaan Jajodia brings you this week’s Dispatches from Clubland.—LR
Phoenix: The City Without A City Club
With the University Club’s closure, Phoenix loses its last dining club
Nearly four months ago, the University Club of Phoenix closed its doors after being in operation for the past 60 years. This closure marks an end to an era for dining clubs in the Desert Metropolis.
“The University Club tried its absolute best to grow its membership, but we couldn’t gain much traction especially with younger people,” Barry Aarons, the Club’s former president told Clubland USA. “The best choice going forward for us was to stop the financial bleeding and close our doors for good.”
The club’s last day of operation was June 30, 2025. Phoenix Country Club has extended social memberships to former University Club members to ensure that relationships can continue in a physical space. Past members of the Club came together and raised $12,000 for the staff of the Club impacted shortly before a holiday weekend.
Upon its opening in 1965, the University Club of Phoenix quickly became a hub of the state’s political activity including as a prominent venue for fundraisers. Elected officials, including former governors, and a steady stream of high profile lobbyists and attorneys were highly represented among the Club’s membership.
Aarons, a lobbyist, had always been enamored with clubs since his childhood in New York joining his father for the occasional lunch at the Harvard Club. He was proposed for membership in 1975 by a young, prominent attorney who saw his political potential. “You’re building yourself a kind of public policy presence,” the attorney told Aarons. “You really need to be a member of the club, and I think you should join the University Club.” —LR
To continue reading more, please click here.
Dispatches from Clubland
Some Specter Action. The US Open for Squash is currently underway at the Specter Centre in Philadelphia. In the second round, which is underway, the #1 American player, Timmy Brownell, was defeated by the #1-ranked player, the Egyptian Mostafa Asal. Asal has been mired in controversies over his bullish style of play that veers towards hazardous in the enclosed space of a squash court. Clubland USA favourite Juan Camilo Vargas, after winning his first game against the Pakistani-American player Salim Khan, lost in three against the Egyptian Ibrahim Youssef.
Deeds and Grants. The Capital City Country Club of Tallahassee, FL, which was in dire financial straits, is in the process of purchasing the leased land its golf course was situated on following a city appraisal that valued the land at $1.25 million. The acquisition will enable the Capital Country Club to expand its offerings and develop further facilities, including providing a home base to Florida A&M University’s golf team.
A Phoenix Rises. The UCLA Faculty Club—one of the few remaining faculty clubs at universities in the United States—is transitioning to the UCLA University Club, open to a large swathe of the community beyond UCLA affiliates. Clubland USA wishes the UCLA University Club the very best, and hopes that universities will appreciate cross-campus connections and reap benefits from intercourse with the larger community.