How To Start A Supper Club

When you graduate from college, you will probably find that maintaining friendships suddenly takes a lot more work. I very much found this to be the case. My friends and I moved around the country and all got busy with jobs, new cities, trying to meet new people, boyfriends, and the list goes on. I moved to Los Angeles. LA presents it’s very own set of challenges for seeing your friends who live in the exact same city as you – traffic and distance between neighborhoods. Two of my friends and I found that we rarely saw each other because we live in different parts of town, which in LA = going out to different restaurants and bars + not liking to drive to each other’s neighborhoods because of traffic or paying for Ubers. So, we created a Supper Club.

Once a month, the three of us get together at a different restaurant for dinner. We always pick somewhere we haven’t been before. I love it so much because it gives me an excuse to see my two girlfriends and because I always look forward to a yummy meal at a new restaurant. It also allows me to explore LA, which was especially amazing when I first moved here after college. I’m literally eating my way through LA!

What we’ve found works best for starting and maintaining a Supper Club:

1. Dinner works best. Dinner is easiest for us because we all travel so much that weekends become tricky. Although, we have high hopes of doing a brunch one day!

2. Keep the group small. Since there are only 3 of us, we can always find a date that works for our schedules. However, if you want to try a big group, I’d suggest picking dates that work for the majority of the group while recognizing that not everyone will make it every month.

3. Inviting guests is a blast! We’ve started a tradition where we each get to bring a guest of choice for our birthday month dinner. We also all bring our significant others to our December Supper Club because we treat it as a fun holiday affair!

4. Make traditions. Our first Supper Club was in December 2012 so every December we bring dates and go back to the restaurant where it all started, Cecconi’s. It gives us something to look forward to all year.

5. Diversify your restaurant choices. We keep our restaurant picks different in a handful of ways. We eat all different kinds of cuisine. We go to some traditional LA restaurants that have been around for years and we go to brand new restaurants that have recently opened. We go to splurge restaurants and we go to $20 a meal restaurants. We go to restaurants all over LA – Santa Monica, Venice, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Hollywood, Downtown, Silverlake, Mid City, Hancock Park etc. We always try to mix it up!

6. Create a list of restaurants to try. We use the app Wunderlist to create a running list of restaurants to go to. We use Wunderlist because we can all “join” a list and edit and add to it on our phones. So, we add restaurants on our own when we hear about or read about one and then we all talk about what we’ve added when we get together for Supper Club.

I bet you’re wondering where we’ve been. If you live in LA you might especially be wondering (cough, cough #6 above – keep your eyes and ears open for restaurants!). So, here is our extensive list of where we’ve wined and dined + a few missed months along the way:

2012:

December: Cecconi’s

.

2013:

January: Eveleigh (West Hollywood)

February: Skipped

March: Fig & Olive (West Hollywood)

April: Tar & Roses (Santa Monica)

May: AOC Wine Bar (Mid City)

June: Skipped

July: Ink (West Hollywood)

August: Hinoki & The Bird (Century City)

September: Son of a Gun (Mid City)

October: Skipped

November: Cleo (Hollywood)

December: Cecconi’s (West Hollywood)

.

2014:

January: Bestia (Downtown)

February: Tasting Kitchen (Venice)

March: Alma (Downtown)

April: Chi Spacca (Hancock Park)

May: Smoke.Oil.Salt (Hancock Park-ish)

June: Connie & Ted’s (West Hollywood)

July: République (La Brea/Miracle Mile)

August: Providence (Hancock Park)

September: Baco Mercat (Downtown)

October: Red Medicine – closed now

November: Marugame Monzo (Little Tokyo)

December: Cecconi’s (West Hollywood)

.

2015:

January: Skipped

February: Alimento (Silverlake)

March: Redbird (Downtown)

April: Trois Mec (Mid-Wilshire)

May: Milo & Olive (Santa Monica)

June: Skipped

July: Skipped

August: Skipped

September: Cadet – closed now

October: Cassia (Santa Monica)

November: Craig’s (West Hollywood)

December: Cecconi’s (West Hollywood)

.

2016:

January: Mr Chow (Beverly Hills)

Supper Club is also a great reason to get dressed up during the week and feel cute after a long workday. Here are a few pieces I picked out that I’d wear to my Supper Club (almost every piece is under $100 with some pieces under $50!):

I hope this inspires you to start your own Supper Club!

Photograph: Sequins & Stripes (P.S. all the tableware in the above photos is from Kate Spade!)