What I Liked
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Fun design
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Pool table
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Restaurant Quality food
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Fully complimentary bar, including champagne
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Lots of natural light
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Windows on both sides of the lounge
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The Virgin Clubhouse at JFK Terminal 4 is a class act. The lounge design is funky and fun. There’s restaurant quality food, champagne on tap and a pool table. The lounge is bathed in natural light, with runway views.
What’s not to like?! It’s a terrific business class lounge. New York JFK Terminal 4 is probably the best terminal in the US for lounges. The Virgin Clubhouse is one of the best.
It’s a great place to spend a couple of hours (or more) before your flight. If you can, arrive early to enjoy the lounge.
I was considering to visit the Air India Lounge opposite. I wanted to review that lounge too. However, that lounge doesn’t have a great reputation. I chose to enjoy the Clubhouse for longer!
This Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse review has full details of what to expect. There’s lots of photos and information. All of the photos can be clicked and pop out to a slideshow.
If you’re flying in international business class with Virgin, Delta or China Airlines. Then you get access.
If you have gold status with Virgin, then you get access. Skyteam Elite Plus and Singapore Krisflyer gold members also get access.
You can also get access to the Virgin Clubhouse with your Priority Pass Card. Although only in the morning.
The lounge wasn’t too busy when I was there. I heard lots of English accents and not many American ones.
There’s a lot of Delta flyers that have access to this lounge. However, there’s a large Delta SkyClub in JFK Terminal 4. It looks like those flyers chose to visit the Delta lounge instead.
I imagine they don’t know, that the Virgin Clubhouse has champagne on tap!
The Virgin Clubhouse is a JFK Terminal 4 Lounge. The Lounge is next to gate A5. Opposite the Air India Lounge. The Air India Lounge can be accessed with a Priority Pass. So that might be worth considering.
If you’re flying from the B gates, then you should factor the transfer times. I would add in 30 minutes, to get from the lounge to the B gates.
In my view, JFK Terminal 4 has the best lounges of any Terminal in the USA. There’s a huge Delta SkyClub. There’s also an AMEX Centurion Lounge. Emirates have a lounge in the Terminal too.
The lounge is mid-sized. There are floor to ceiling windows, with sweeping runway views. I got a lovely shot of a Virgin A330, outside the window.
The lounge has the following facilities
Virgin Clubhouses are famous for their funky vibe. This lounge is a perfect example. There’s a pool table for a start!
There’s lots of fun furniture items. There were red leather sofas and stylish seats. They had a cool sign saying “London Calling” on the wall. A lot of effort has been made on the decor.
It’s very rare that you see this much effort taken into a lounge design. I was impressed. Check out the photos in the slideshow.
The lounge is a square shape and it’s not very large. With JFK Terminal 4 Lounges, the terminal is home of Delta Airlines. Delta customers can also access the Clubhouse. Priority Pass customers can access the Clubhouse in the morning.
A lot of people can enter this lounge. So overcrowding can be an issue at certain times.
Because the lounge isn’t large, there’s lots of natural light. There are floor to ceiling windows on both sides. I arrived in the afternoon, and the lounge was bathed in light.
The Virgin Clubhouse doesn’t have a buffet. Everything is dine on demand. Just like a restaurant.
In fact, the food is restaurant quality. I would happily pay for it. I normally don’t say that about lounge food!
You order the food by scanning a QR code on the table. Each QR code is unique to the table. So you don’t need to give a table number. After you order, you’ll get your food delivered a few minutes later.
There were an impressive array of dishes
I had pumpkin soup, veggie gyoza and a veggie burger. The food arrived after 20 minutes and was lovely.
The pumpkin soup was nearly as good as the soup I make at home! It was thick and well flavoured.
The veggie burger was good too. The patty was by Beyond Meat. It came with a decent portion of fries. The burger bun wasn’t the best however. They didn’t toast it.
The veggie Gyoza were decent. You can’t really go wrong with Gyoza. The meal would probably cost $60 from a restaurant in New York.
The Virgin Clubhouse stands out, when it comes to the drinks. Everything is ordered on demand, just like the food.
All drinks are complimentary. This is different to most lounges in the US. Usually, cheap alcohol is free. But the good stuff is chargeable. So, unless you want to drink wine that tastes like acid, you gotta pay up.
On a personal level, it doesn’t bother me that lounges charge for decent alcohol. I don’t drink very much at all. However,. It someone has paid $5,000 for an international business class ticket, I think it’s rude to charge them for alcohol.
Everything at the Virgin Clubhouse bar is complimentary. Including champagne. Champagne at business class lounges is very unusual these days.
I started off with an English breakfast tea. It was very good. Served in a proper tea pot. Brewed nicely. It was a proper cup of English tea!
I find that tea in the US often disappoints. Normally, places don’t use boiling water, so the tea doesn’t brew properly. I was really pleased with my tea at the Virgin clubhouse.
After my dinner, I had a Guinness. It was from a bottle, rather than the tap. If I had known it was served from a bottle, I wouldn’t have bothered. It wasn’t great. Guinness is much better from the tap.
