You should never make assumptions, but it is a reasonable bet that nobody at BK Chalet, an après-ski-themed pop-up at the Saloon at Clover Club, in Brooklyn, has come directly from the slopes. The slopes are—optimistically—approximately two hours away. The Chalet is on a major urban thoroughfare, and also, while it is chilly here, in the age of climate change, there is generally no snow.
But you can pretend. We are all desperate to pretend, apparently, based on the number of seasonal après-ski-themed events that have popped up across the country, in places with no skiing and no mountains, in cities where typically—this week’s arctic blast notwithstanding—it isn’t even cold. At the Helena Modern Riviera, a hotel in Orlando, you can, from November until January, scoop aligot and sip Champagne amid the faux snow–covered forest at “Orlando’s only ski experience”; the pop-up Après Ski Lodge at The Press Room, in Greenville, South Carolina, overlooks the fake French Alps and features a “life-sized yeti.”
In a literal sense, après-ski—the practice of warming up over drinks after skiing—requires that one ski first. It is right there, in the name. “If you take the ‘ski’ out of the thing, why not just call it happy hour?” asks a skeptical Elijah Safford, whose Taos après-ski pop-up is in an actual ski town, catering to actual skiers. It is a valid point. What are any of the rest of us doing, adopting the accoutrements of ski culture without its central tenet? “If you take the ‘ski’ out of the situation, then you’re just, what?” He pauses. “Putting skis on a wall and doing shotskis and leaning into the European traditions?”
The answer to this is: yes. That is, with some variation, exactly what the après-ski pop-up is doing. The après-ski pop-up likely does have skis on the wall, or at least, signage about skiing (“ski patrol,” “caution: ◆◆”) or decorative snowshoes. There is alpine greenery dusted with fake snow; the staff, perhaps, are wearing knit caps and rugged sws. The cocktails are cozy, spiced drinks and warm drinks and drinks featuring ingredients like cranberry and pine tincture, with names like “Eat Snow” and “Cabin Fever.” It is not exactly Christmas-themed, though with all the snowflakes and the pine trees and the twinkle lights and, on occasion, a stray Santa, it does bear some resemblance. Practically speaking, says Kylie McCalla, beverage manager at Cindy’s Rooftop in Chicago, “it’s a nondenominational representation of the holidays in winter.” (It is also one that allows bars to extend the party past the end-of-year festive season and into the slog of January—notoriously, the industry’s slowest month.) But unlike, say, “Winter Wonderland” —Understory in San Diego did that at this time last year—“après-ski” is “more adrenaline,” explains Chance Curtis, Understory’s general manager. “It’s more fun and definitely not as laid-back.” It is a little bit less snow globe, a little more Zermatt.
The sad reality is that many of us have not been skiing, in Zermatt or elsewhere. Instead, we are slogging through winter, in grim cities and powderless towns, with no vacations on the horizon—you can barely see the horizon. It gets dark at 4:30 p.m. But you can fantasize that you are elsewhere, living a life of vigorous leisure. “It’s really just about evoking that vibe,” says Alycia Rovner, the COO of Short Path Distillery in Boston, which is hosting an Après Ski pop-up at the distillery’s cocktail bar. Has not everybody, in some sense, spent the day scaling some kind of mountain? “No, you weren’t skiing all day before you came to the bar, but maybe you were working all day, you were out running errands, you were taking care of the kids,” she says. Why shouldn’t you also get to unwind, in a seasonal and special-feeling manner that is luxurious and warm and vaguely European? Après-ski turns winter—a general downer—into an asset. It is a reason for a party.
This year, for the third season in a row, the Kimpton Shorebreak Resort in Huntington Beach opened its Pier Summit Ski Lodge, an ’80s-themed ski fantasy pop-up. People come in ski gear and sws, says Janice Tugaoen, head of sales and marketing for the hotel; they order raclette and drink mulled wine. “They love the feeling of being in a place where they get transported somewhere.”
