The Russian Tea Room

As the Toreador put stock in places of beauty, and the Tremere in places of learning, so do the Ventrue put stock in places of power. Real power.
The Russian Tea Room is an unofficial gathering place for the Blue Bloods but it is hardly a place of rest. No, the Tea Room is a place of challenge where the Ventrue can sharpen their wits, make their power plays, and engage in the endless hierarchical struggles that come so naturally to them.
While non-Ventrue aren't expressly forbidden, any Ventrue who does meet an outsider there accepts it as a challenge. It is a gauntlet thrown, a sign that the Kindred is done with the kiddie table and is ready to risk their unlife playing the deadly game of one-upmanship that the Blue Bloods thrive upon.

Purpose / Function

Like anything else in the never-ending struggle among the Ventrue for Clan supremacy, the Russian Tea Room is all a balancing act. To never appear there is to say that the Ventrue in question is a mere child, unready for the work of adults, but to appear too often is to look needy and power-hungry to an uncouth degree. To use Disciplines in a flashy, assertive way is to call attention to one's own inadequacies, but to eschew them completely is to admit that one doesn't have the heavy guns to back up one's claims.
The deadliest balancing act of all is the same one it has always been: the Masquerade. By tradition, mortals are never kept from the Tea Room "for private functions," or similar excuses. There are no "side rooms" and the place is almost always well-lit. The Ventrue who gather there must be always on their toes for everything they say or do. The ones who really thrive are those who have absorbed the Masquerade to such a degree as to do so effortlessly.

History

The Russian Tea Room of Chicago has been in business since the 1930s and it has been owned by the Prince of Chicago all that time. Before that the Ventrue of Chicago met at the Berghoff.
The Russian Tea Room is one of the few places outside of Elysium that one has any chance of seeing Prince Reinhold Fisher, though very, very rarely.
Seneschal Athena Reid puts in semi-regular appearances, mostly to manage the building's owners on behalf of the Prince but also to remind her Clanmates why she belongs so close to the top.
Primogen Frederick Kijek seldom shows his face due, he claims, to a very full schedule. But the forms are obeyed.
Harpy Behn Zhao dines often at the Russian Tea Room but seldom engages with his Clanmates while there. Secretly they admit that they come to watch the fireworks between the Ventrue neonates.
Brooks Patterson and Elizabeth Fox are regular fixtures. The former simply hasn't caught the nuance that "less is more" if one wants to use Tea Room appearances to climb the social ladder. The latter simply refuses to be outdone by Patterson.

Owner

Prince Reinhold Fisher