Holiday parties.

Forty years in business has taught me one thing about December.

The people who book in September are calm. The people who book in November are not. It has nothing to do with the deadline and everything to do with which version of you is planning the party — the one who is ahead, or the one who is chasing.

There are four Saturdays in December. Every company on the Main Line wants two of them.

Why this beats the restaurant back room

The back room at a restaurant is a long table and a set menu. Everybody sits down at seven, eats, and is looking at their phone by nine because there is nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.

A holiday party needs somewhere to go.

Cocktails, pool and shuffleboard on the first floor. Dinner upstairs in The Loft. Then the stage — a band, a DJ, or karaoke, which is where you find out that the quiet one in accounting has been sitting on a Whitney Houston number this whole time.

Two floors, two bars, a room that changes as the night moves. People stay. That is the only real measure of a good party.

Sizes

The Lounge, 20–30, for the small team or the partner dinner. The first floor, 80–100 seated or 200 on a buyout. The Loft, up to 250, dinner for 150 and then the floor. The whole building, up to 500 — cocktails downstairs, dinner and dancing upstairs, nobody leaves.

The food & the bar

A kitchen, not a chafing dish. Ribeye, red wine braised short rib, jumbo lump crab cake with shrimp mousse, sesame-seared tuna, fresh pappardelle. Eleven signature cocktails and two full bars.

Bar packages run open, consumption, drink tickets or cash — the choice that usually decides the budget. Tell us the headcount and how the room drinks and we will tell you which one costs you less.

One team, one invoice. When your headcount moves in the last week, and it will, there is one person to call.

The move nobody makes

Book the first or second week of December instead of the third.

Your people are not yet exhausted, your party is not the fourth one they have been to that week, and your date is not competing with every other company in Chester County. Same party, better night, easier date to get.

Book by October 31 and there is money in it

Forty guests or more and you get a $50 gift card. Eighty or more and you get three of them — $150 back.

Book by October 31 to qualify. It is the same party either way; the only thing that changes is when you decide.

Per head, moved by the menu & the bar package. December books early and the good dates go first — twenty-five percent holds one.

Date, headcount, and how you want the bar run. A real number comes back inside one business day.

Twenty-guest minimum for any room, the Lounge included. Twenty-five percent holds it. First floor fully accessible, restrooms included. The Loft is second floor with no elevator — but there is a stair-climbing chair and staff trained to use it, arranged ahead — tell us at booking.