At 363 Car & Social Club in Sudbury, the idea didn’t arrive as a finished concept. It took shape on site—piece by piece—until it became clear there was a vision worth building.
“The social club is, for lack of a better term, a passion project, a hobby,” says founder Gianni Grossi. “I don’t want to say something on the side because it’s really turning into… something!”
Today, that “something” lands between categories. Not storage-only. Not a traditional private club. A controlled space where the cars are always part of the room, and everything builds around them.
From there, the details—and the thinking behind them—are Gianni’s. He didn’t set out to create a car club. He recognized the potential in front of him and followed it.
From space to spark
It started with the building.
The opportunity came through a property acquisition—an old industrial laundry that used to service the hospitals in town. When it shut down, they basically turned the lights off and walked away. All the equipment was still inside—the pipes, the machinery, the walls.
My brothers and I have always been car guys, and we needed more space for our own collection. A car club hadn’t been on my radar as something to build. I walked through 22,000 square feet of the right kind of space, in the right part of town—and the idea landed in front of me.
Once it did, I started doing the homework. The more I looked, the clearer it became: members’ car clubs are an emerging trend; the model works in larger markets; and there was no real version of it here, or anywhere in the region. That’s when it stopped being a building—and started being a business worth building.
Not a market gap I had identified on a spreadsheet, but an opportunity I recognized standing in front of me—validated by what was happening in the bigger markets, and then committed to.
The part I love most is what people say when they walk in for the first time. They tell me it doesn’t feel like Sudbury. They say it reminds them of something they’d find in Toronto or Montreal. That’s exactly what I wanted to build—and hearing it back from members and guests is the clearest signal we got it right.
What’s the most misunderstood?
Almost everything—and I think that’s because it’s genuinely new. People hear ‘car club’ and reach for the closest reference point they have, which is usually either a storage condo or a country club. 363 isn’t really either one.
I want it to be a gathering place—somewhere members can plan things together, decide what they want to do, look at the calendar, sign up for what fits, and skip what doesn’t. There are member events, open events, and private events—and not every member has to be at every one. That’s fine.
The point is that the place exists, the community exists, and you have access to it on your terms. It’s hard to describe in a sentence, because it’s not pretending to be a category that already exists. You kind of have to come walk through it.
Community comes first
It’s a club. The storage and the events are how the club expresses itself—but if you take away the membership and the community, the rest doesn’t matter.
We have over 22,000 square feet, mostly on a single level, with another 9,000 upstairs. There’s a full bar, a full kitchen, golf sims, car sims, a lounge area, and accent lighting throughout. We can theme the lighting to match a corporate logo for a private event—which has been a hit.
But all of that is in service of one thing: giving members a place they’re genuinely proud to bring their cars and their people to. If I had to pick a single label, I’d say 363 is a members’ club where the cars are part of the family.
Balance builds better
The cars are the reason people walk in the door; the social is the reason they stay. You need both.
If you over-index on cars, you end up with an expensive garage where nobody talks to each other. If you over-index on social, you’re a bar with some interesting decor. Neither is what we’re building.
Long term, the social side creates the culture—and the culture is what makes the cars worth showing. The cars give the social side something to be about. They feed each other.
Participation is the point
I’ll be honest—I don’t have a tightly defined ‘ideal member’ profile, and I don’t want one. The best member, to me, is someone who will actually use the space, share it, and show up—someone who comes to the cars and coffees, joins the drives, brings their car out, and treats 363 like their place.
That’s why we built the membership in tiers. There’s a Next Generation tier for 19 to 25 year olds, all the way up to Executive and Corporate—social memberships, storage memberships. We’ve tried to make sure there’s a real way in for anyone who fits the spirit of the place, regardless of where they are in life.
Who it’s not for? Someone looking for a parking spot and nothing else. Someone who wants their car locked away and never wants to interact with the community. That person can find storage anywhere. They don’t need us—and frankly, we’d rather have the space for someone who’s going to engage.
We’ve had a fair number of tire kickers so far, and I think a lot of that is because we’re still finishing up some licensing. Once that’s wrapped in the next month, and we have regular, predictable operating hours, the momentum will follow. People are watching—they just want to see it settle in.
Visibility and vigilance
We don’t hide the cars. A lot of high-end storage clubs keep the membership collection tucked away, and only roll the cars out for club-only events. I think that’s wrong.
We’re in a climate where these cars are realistically on the road two or three months a year. The other nine—they should be visible. At 363, the cars are on display all the time. Members can see them, guests can see them, and the cars become part of the experience of being in the building. That’s the whole point of having them somewhere beautiful.
Cleanliness sounds basic, but it isn’t. This place has to be spotless, all the time—no exceptions. The floor, the bar, the lounge, the bathrooms, the cars themselves. The minute a place like this starts looking lived-in in the wrong way, the magic dies.
I obsess over it. I’d rather close early to clean properly than open the doors to a space that isn’t right. Everything else can be debated. Those two are non-negotiable.
Events drive everything
We’ve done over 50 events since we opened—everything from birthdays to corporate training sessions.
We hosted a three-day, multi-dealership sales event in mid-February, with the cars inside the building—which went incredibly well. Our first members-only night in January was a wine and cheese with live jazz, and we’ve got a blues night coming.
Storage is steady and important—it’s the spine of the membership model. But the events are what introduce the place to people, and give existing members reasons to keep coming back. Every event also brings in non-members, who see the space, see the community, and start asking how to join.
Events do double duty: they’re revenue—and they’re the best marketing we have.
People, plans, progression
The vibe—that’s the word that keeps coming back from every event we’ve held. It’s not something you can manufacture on opening day. It builds.
After a few months, members stop thinking of 363 as a place they go—and start thinking of it as their place. They drop in on a Saturday for coffee, bring a friend, hang out at the bar after a drive. They start running into the same people—and forming real friendships around cars.
The bigger value is what we’re building toward: an organized drive group, a track group, a crew that travels together to meets in Toronto, Burlington, Mississauga, Ottawa, Quebec. There’s so much road and so many events within reach—and most car owners up here drive to those things alone, or in twos and threes.
We want to make 363 the place that organizes those trips—books the rooms, plans the routes, and takes 15 cars instead of two. The membership pays for itself in storage and amenities. The value compounds in the people you meet—and the experiences you wouldn’t have had otherwise.
