New Supper Club To Highlight the Hobby Center’s Sweeping $45 Million Makeover — Creating a Dynamic Scene Worthy of Lincoln Center

The curtain rose Monday night on a new chapter for the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts with the reveal of a $45 million capital campaign geared around elevating the 24-year-old center across performance spaces and visitor experience, and funding an exciting third performance venue. Think an inmate supper club a la The Carlisle.

Campaign chairs Lesha and Tom Elsenbrook announced the effort at festivities for supporters in the Hobby Center’s Founder’s Club, which closes in April 2027. It will reopen fall 2028 as an elegant supper club featuring a broad swath of top tier entertainers.

“So this is a new kind of supper club experience for Houston. I love that idea,” Hobby Center president and CEO Mark Folkes tells PaperCity. “You know through the years it’s existed in iterations (in Houston), never within the context of a world class performing arts center that we believe brings a unique quality.

“And it brings us access to artists that otherwise might not say yes to making the trek to Houston. So it’s a really dynamic environment.”

Folkes mentions Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center as a similar experience. Myron’s at the Smith Center in Las Vegas and Judson’s Live at the Dr. Phillips Center in Orlando are other comps. Folkes describes Houston’s club as “combining world class artists and performance with an elevated hospitality experience.”

Like those clubs, the new space will offer full bar and dinner options as well as with more than 150 performances each year. In the past year the Hobby Center hosted more than 450 performances reaching an audience of more than 475,000.

“It’s an enormous reach,” Folkes says. “But what we’re excited about is that we’re going to make it even bigger.”

With $31 million of the campaign already realized, funds will cover or have covered state-of-the-art technology and fittings in both Sarofim Hall and Zilkha Hall, the transformation of audience areas including the Grand Lobby, Zilkha Hall Lobby, the box office, hospitality spaces and administrative offices. Concessions are being moved and a new bar will be added.

An addition in the hospitality arena is the Kades Club, named for significant campaign donors Mady and Ken Kades.

“This will be a place where we entertain certainly supporters during performances, but also creates a new event space that can be used for other events at the Hobby center as well,” Folkes notes.

The Kades foundation along with the Hamill Foundation and the Sarofim Foundation each contributed $5 million to the campaign.

Construction on all aspects of the project will begin in public spaces in late 2027 with all elements completed by fall 2028. Programming and events will not be interrupted during this time.

Joining in the fundraising effort are honorary co-chairs Marc Shapiro and Bill Wise, who led the original capital campaign to build the Hobby Center.

Supper Club Fun

So what will this new Houston supper club have? Let’s delve into some of the more interesting details:

— A  dedicated entrance

— A private, dedicated elevator

— A formal bar

— Seating arrangements for two, solo seating at the bar, banquette seating for five or six

— A new commercial kitchen

— Seating at stage level for 120

— Seating on the balcony level for 40

— The city skyline view will be maintained.

— Confirmed naming rights to be revealed in early 2027

— Gensler as architect and interior designer

— Charcoalblue as theater consultant

“We continue to be surprised at the level of excitement and interest we get from the artistic community,” Folkes says. “Yes, in Houston, but also across the country. And it is because of the signature of the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.”