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Wow! San Francisco restaurant launches $4K membership program

The striped bass, boudin noir and morel are served at San Francisco's Atelier Crenn, run by Dominique Crenn since 2011. | Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

It used to be that you could just slip the maitre d’ a crisp $20 to nab a table at the finest restaurant in the city. Dominique Crenn—the first and only female chef in America to earn a coveted three Michelin stars for her namesake Cow Hollow kitchen, Atelier Crenn—is upping the ante with an exclusive new membership club called Crenn Collection

This week, the legendary 12-year-old French restaurant debuted a program that provides guaranteed reservations to its members—though it comes at a patrician price.

For $3,800, a single member is entitled to a calendar year of reservations at Atelier Crenn —72 hours to a year in advance—and an open table each night at the adjacent Bar Crenn, as well as access to private parties the restaurant is calling “bespoke events,” cooking demos and a concierge on call to fulfill Crenn-related requests. Oh, and it comes with a gift box. The cost for a dual membership is $5,800.

These price points might give you sticker shock, but they pale in comparison to the $300,000 memberships that the now-stalled SHŌ Club at Salesforce Park had advertised for its bougie NFT-based members-only club and restaurant.

The news follows Atelier Crenn’s high-profile makeover in January and the launch of Bar Crenn’s craft cocktail menu in March. According to Eater, the redesign concept draws the eye to a 25-foot paper chandelier that ripples across the center of the Japanese, French and Moroccan-inspired dining room, which was completed during Crenn’s stint as a consultant on Netflix’s culinary horror-comedy The Menu. 

Memberships to the meatless restaurant’s dining club are now available on a limited, first-come, first-served basis.