Breaking News: Call Me Back Is a New Speakeasy Hidden in a Phone Booth at Terminal City Club

If you wander into the Lions Pub at the Terminal City Club these days, you’ll likely notice a shiny (and large) new piece of decor on the far left wall: a classic British telephone booth. Open its door, though, and you won’t find a coin-operated “tellie” on which to call your jolly aunt in Brighton, but rather an entire cocktail bar.

Located in what was formerly a flower shop, Call Me Back is Terminal City Club’s newest venture, boasting just 22 seats in an intimate, dark space created by local firm KurtzDesign (think: black wallpaper with red roses; plush red curtains; round light sconces; and a wall covered with real retro phones). The best part? Just like Lions Pub, it’s fully open to the public.

“It’s unlike anything we’ve ever done in the club before,” says Peter Jackman, the Terminal City Club’s general manager and CEO. “From a member point of view, it gives them a spot to come late at night—but it is open to the public, and that’s the beauty of the Lions Pub in so many ways. It’s the heart of the club.”

Terminal City Club owns the entire building that the club is housed within (including the highly craveable Mink Chocolates); so when the flower shop located in the ground-level space next to the Lions Pub opened up, the team knew it was the perfect opportunity to turn it into a late-night destination.

“We’ve been thinking for years, ‘How can we increase the number of visitors that we get into Lions Pub later at night?’” Jackman explains. “And that’s where this came from, looking at: ‘How do we continue to evolve TC Lions Pub to have a room that’s pretty special?’ I don’t know if I’m calling it a speakeasy necessarily, or just a really cool room within Lions Pub, because it is legally part of Lions Pub. But it doesn’t feel anything like Lions Pub, which was exactly what we were going for.”

Aside from an entirely different vibe, Call Me Back also has its own exclusive menu. While Lions Pub is more about beer and highballs, Call Me Back is something of a cocktail haven. There is, for example, the 1892 Spritz: a play on the Aperol classic with North Van’s Copperpenny vocka alongside Woods Arancello, blood orange and prosecco. Or there’s the Sorry Ernie, with Havana Club rum, Strega, clarified acid adjusted grapefruit and simple syrip. Looking to walk on the wild side? Go for the Dealer’s Choice, which has the bartender making something special just for you based on your preferences.

“This is a pretty intimate space that has a different vibe than you’ll feel from Lions Pub, which is a little bit louder,” says Jackman, noting that the pub has a staggering 150 seats. “Creating that intimate space within the club was something that was really important to us. It’s that distinctive, more engaged space with your servers and your mixologists. We really wanted to make that connection.”

Hence the phone theme, which inspires moments of closeness and connection. After all, in today’s world of texts and Instagram messages and Slack channels, what’s more intimate than picking up the phone and calling someone you love?

“We could have easily just made it a room within the pub that would have been successful, because the pub’s packed—but we wanted to do something that was unlike the pub,” Jackman says. “We really wanted to make it something special.”

Call Me Back opens inside the Lions Pub at Terminal City Club tonight, April 10.