A Restaurant Seeking 'Mature & Classy' Clients Bans Customers Under 30 — 'We’re Looking For A Grown & Sexy Vibe’
Gen Zers might be mad, but the older crowd feels seen.
Dragon Images / Shutterstock Age is nothing but a number, so the saying goes. It’s often used to justify age gaps in relationships, but one restaurant owner is interpreting the time-worn adage in a different way.
Bliss is a Caribbean restaurant outside of St. Louis, Missouri, that caters to a very particular crowd.
The restaurant is seeking ‘mature and classy’ clients, banning customers under 30 years old.
Marvin Pate and his wife opened Bliss in May 2024 with one major caveat: No one under 30 is allowed.
To dine at Bliss, clients have to be out of their 20s, placing them firmly in the zone of elder millennials. Women have to be 30 years old, and men have to be 35 in order to enjoy the establishment, which offers cocktails, hookah, and Caribbean food.
While the age restriction has created a certain amount of backlash, Bliss is holding strong to the concept, which they believe elevates the ambiance.
“This policy is in place to ensure a mature, sophisticated, and safe dining environment for everyone,” declared a statement from the Bliss team.
Erica Rhodes, the assistant manager of Bliss, shared the thought process behind the 30-and-up rule, saying, “It’s just something for the older people to come do and have a happy hour, come get some good food and not have to worry about some of the young folks that bring some of that drama.”
The age restriction supposedly allows the restaurant to cultivate a ‘grown and sexy’ vibe.
“We’re keeping it classy,” stated a post from Bliss’s Facebook page, making it clear that their definition of class relies on how many turns around the sun you’ve taken.
As Jordan Johnson, a DJ at Bliss, explained, “We are standing on this age restriction. It’s a brand and vibe we are trying to protect.”
“This provides an environment for us so we can be around like-minded people and people who have the same energy,” he continued.
While the age restriction at Bliss has made some people feel cast aside and disgruntled, Jordan makes a fairly solid point.
Most public spaces, like bars and concert venues, cater to younger generations. Most of our society is hyper-focused on youth, as though crossing the threshold into middle age immediately renders a person invisible and unvalued.
There’s no doubt that we all need spaces beyond our homes and offices to find that crucial social interaction that makes us human, that makes us feel alive. We need to meet new people and talk to those people by having actual conversations — not through a string of text and emoji emotions.
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The issue that the age restriction raises has less to do with who or who isn’t allowed into Bliss. The rule touches on the larger question of how our world is structured and who holds the right amount of cultural capital, social agency, and access.
Time is an unstoppable force, something we all reckon with. No one on this earth can outrun the years that march endlessly on. We can religiously smear SPF on our skin and hide our gray hairs, but getting older is an unavoidable truth of existence.
We can pay gobs of money for cosmetic procedures in an effort to keep ourselves looking like some version of who we were at 20. We can switch out our skinny jeans for wide-legged pants, but maybe what we should do instead is reframe the conversation.
Instead of looking at youth as something to clutch in our age-spotted hands, we should embrace our wisdom, our lived experience, and our wrinkles and grab a cocktail at Bliss.
Meet you there.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.