When it's time for a girls' night out in Dallas, Alexa Kapioltas doesn't waste a minute barhopping. She rallies her friends and whisks them to the Candle Room, an exclusive lounge voted the "best place you can't get into" by a local city guide. "Some of my friends think it's too hoity-toity, but many of them like the fact that it's a cool spot and that people can't normally get in," says Kapioltas, 29, a marketing executive in an architecture firm.
As more professionals try to maximize their leisure time, many are searching for communities of like-minded people. It's the velvet-rope...