Denver Supper Club

Started in January 2024, the Denver Supper Club meets once a month — six members, each of whom brings a guest. A rotating host picks the topic, organizes dinner and wine, and leads the conversation. Topics have ranged from What is an education? to Beauty to Should the government put GLP-1 in the water?

If you’d like to start your own, the founding invite is below.

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The Founding Invite

Sent January 2024

Dear Friends,

You’re receiving this invitation because I think you’re someone who appreciates meaningful conversation, values connections, and has a reverence for the word community. In 2024, with you, I’d like to start a Denver Supper Club to meet once a month, dedicated to connection and rich conversation. The contours of the idea are roughly this:

The core of the Supper Club will be composed of six(ish) members. Each member is welcome to bring a guest to each month’s event. However, only members of the Club and their guests are invited. There are several reasons for this. The first is that a consistent core group helps build trust. Trust helps foster openness and community. The second is more basic. We’re attracted to things that feel exclusive. (A simple appeal to psychology here.)

But, for that reason, I’m asking each member of the Supper Club to make a commitment that they will prioritize all ten monthly gatherings. Additionally, members would commit to host one gathering during the year. Hosting duties will include setting the date, finding the venue, guiding the conversation (including setting the evening’s topic), and ensuring that things run smoothly.

To help frame this commitment, you can think of it as having both a time and a financial component. The time aspect will be roughly two hours per month (unless you’re hosting; might require a bit more time). The financial aspect can be summed up as roughly $25 per gathering. It’s a Supper Club, after all, so that $25 might be in the form of a bottle of wine or food, if hosted at someone’s house, or a meal, if hosted in a venue. If hosted in a home, I’m imagining it as a potluck style event, but the host could help determine that.

I’m anticipating 10 gatherings during 2024, skipping July and December.

In my mind, there are two main points to this activity. The first is connection. The second is conversation. There should, and will, be a topic each time we gather. No one is expected to be an expert. Rather, it’s a time to gather, exchange ideas, and enjoy the pinnacle of human civilization — meaningful dialogue. But you don’t need to study extensively for something like this. Maybe read an article or two. We’ll all learn together. No topics are off limits. (If you know me well, you know that I think sex, religion, and politics are the only things really worth talking about), but, again, the point isn’t to have hot-take debates but to interrogate a topic together. Let our guiding principle be that the relationship is more important than being right.

A final point — I am not starting this. I don’t consider myself to be the “leader” of this group. I envision shared ownership, shared responsibility for its outcomes and success and failures, and shared engagement for what it might and could be. I will commit to host the first event in January to kick things off, but after that I expect to be as much an equal part of the group as everyone who commits to this idea. For this reason, if you commit, please recognize you’re committing to attend all 10 suppers in 2024, and that you’re prioritizing this in your list of many things to do.

If you feel on the fence about this for whatever reason — maybe you’re having your first child this year; maybe you think work in 2024 will be nuts — or maybe you’re hesitant to make this commitment. No worries. Just please be honest with yourself about whether this is a reasonable thing to add to your schedule; it respects the rest of the group.

If this thing is a success, there will likely be an iteration of it in 2025 as well.

Best, Jean-Luc