Airport lounges have become one of the biggest battlegrounds in premium travel, and Chase is making its biggest move yet in Texas.
The company will officially open its newest Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club on July 16 at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, giving Chase Sapphire Reserve cardmembers access to an 18,000-square-foot space centered around local food, wellness experiences, family-friendly amenities and the lounge network’s first dedicated whiskey lounge.
Located post-security in Terminal D near Gate D25, the lounge arrives in one of Chase’s most important markets. According to Dana Pouwels, head of airport lounge benefits at Chase, the Dallas-Fort Worth region is home to nearly 3 million Chase customers, almost 300,000 small businesses, and roughly 17,000 employees, making it a natural fit for one of the company’s largest lounge concepts.
“We’re thrilled, first of all, to be opening a lounge in Dallas Fort Worth,” Pouwels tells Fast Company. “This is a very important market for JPMorgan Chase.”
Designed with Dallas in mind
At 18,000 square feet, the split-level lounge ranks among the largest in the Chase Sapphire Lounge network.
The space features a full-service bar, family room, private nursing room, showers, reservable rest pods and complimentary Face Haus mini facials, which last about 15 to 20 minutes and have become a popular amenity at other Chase lounges.
Pouwels says Chase approached the design by looking beyond the airport itself and focusing on what makes Dallas-Fort Worth unique.
“In terms of the design, we always really are looking at the local elements of the city and how we can infuse that into the Sapphire experience,” she says. “That’s really a lot of research and knowledge of the local area to ensure that we incorporate that local feeling in the right way.”
Throughout the lounge, guests will find leather accents, natural Texas-inspired materials and subtle nods to Dallas sports, along with a signature brass-canopy bar and stone countertops that double as charging stations.
Local restaurants shape the menu.
Rather than relying on standard airport fare, Chase partnered with Bishop Arts District favorite Encina to create a menu inspired by Texas ingredients and flavors.
Breakfast includes blue corn butterscotch pancakes, while afternoon offerings feature dishes like slab bacon with cheddar grits. Coffee comes from Fort Worth’s Cherry Coffee, a women-owned roaster located in the city’s Near Southside neighborhood. The beverage program also features Texas beers, regional cocktails and wines curated by Parcelle.
“The food and beverage continues to be a very important part of our offering,” Pouwels says. She added that Chase wants each lounge to give travelers “that sense of discovery” by offering something new to experience rather than standard airport fare.
A first for the Sapphire Lounge network
The biggest draw for the lounge may be tucked away behind an unassuming entrance.
DFW is home to the Chase Sapphire Lounge network’s first dedicated whiskey lounge, a separate 40-seat space featuring guided tastings, tableside whiskey cart service, food pairings and an all-Texas whiskey lineup.
The collection includes Texas bourbons and ryes from producers across the state, including Fort Worth and Waco, as well as an exclusive custom barrel from Milam & Greene created specifically for the lounge.
“We’re really excited about the whiskey room,” Pouwels says. “The whiskey room is really focused on having a collection of whiskeys from the Texas region, and we think that is very, very much unique to this area.”
The whiskey lounge also includes one unexpected feature: televisions.
Chase generally avoids TVs in its lounges, but made an exception for Dallas because of the region’s sports culture. When not in use, the screens disappear into the décor by functioning as mirrors.
“When they’re off, you will not otherwise know that they’re televisions,” Pouwels says. “They look like a mirror, and we’ll only have them on if there’s a sporting event that guests would like to see.”
Wellness joins the travel experience.
Dallas is also the first Chase Sapphire Lounge to introduce custom Peloton wellness programming.
Travelers will be able to access guided stretching routines and meditation sessions created specifically for airport travel through their own phones and tablets before the content expands to the broader Chase Sapphire Lounge network.
“We’re always looking and exploring different ways to bring wellness to customers in the lounges,” Pouwels says. “We thought that this would be a great place to pilot this in Dallas.”
The DFW opening continues Chase’s rapid expansion in premium airport lounges, with Los Angeles International Airport expected to become the network’s next location within the coming year.