Alpine Club

We recently hosted our Christmas party at the Alpine Club. The staff was incredible! The food was amazing! The village was festive! There were no complaints, period! We were catered to as if we were royalty. The mood was romantic and every special touch was noticed. Thank you for making our evening a huge success!

Love the place. Service and facilities are great, staff is super friendly and always helpful. Get a lot more out of my ski day.

Within the rapidly segmenting universe that is the Ski Resorts industry in Lake Tahoe, I have a love-​hate relationship with Northstar. For better and for worse, it is the most built-​out of the Tahoe ski resorts in terms of the non-​ski village amenities: New-​ish construction, lovely furnishings, very much a «luxury» experience in the modern McLuxury marketing parlance. But much of this attempt at going chi-​chi is betrayed by the on-​site staff: Instead of seasoned professionals from the hospitality industry, many of the people working here are untrained, seasonal workers relatively new to the trade. My experiences at the Alpine Club typifies this gap.
On the plus side, it’s a wonderful facility that’s really conveniently situated to all things Northstar. It’s smack in the middle of the Village, completely ski-​in accessible from the Village Run trail, provides super-​convenient ski valet service and is a really comfortable après-​ski watering hole. In other words, it’s a perfectly lovely spot. With generally friendly, perfectly competent service.
And then, you run into front-​end staffers that completely betray the venue concept. Your interaction might go like mine did this afternoon:
Background: We’re staying in a 3-​bedroom condo, party of 4 adults and 4 kids, of which 2 adults and 1 kid has their own ski gear.
Me: «Hi, I’d like to check this snowboard into the valet please.»
Front desk: «Um, I see that this person already has a ski checked in here.»
Me: «Yes, is that a problem?»
Front desk: «I think we can only take 1 ski or board per person. I’d have to ask my supervisor.»
Me: (Not wanting to wait around much; the unit is so close that I can just store at the house.) «It’s a 3-​bedroom unit and only 3 out of 8 of us are checking stuff here. Can I check this under one of our other (non-​skiing) guest names?
Front desk: «Um, I can’t do that.»
And yet we keep going back. Joys of being a captive audience. Love-​hate. Just go in with eyes wide open, and you’ll be fine.