The Key To Success Is Growth

The key to the health of most supper clubs is growth. The supper clubs that last for a long time are the ones that are open to new members and actively encourage newbies, especially younger ones, to easily get involved.

A problem our local supper club is that a lot of members are getting older. Many have been in the club for over 20 years. Lots of our good friends have moved away. We are faced with the challenge of recruiting new members and members not of a certain age.

Just about everybody likes to socialize over a meal, but many of us are daunted by the supper club challenges of:

Finding the right people?
How to organize?
How to host a dinner party?
What if i don’t cook?
How to recruit new (and younger) members?

Impromptu Friday Nights – A Guide to Supper Clubs (Available from Morgan James Publishing anywhere books are sold) addresses these concerns in detail. However, encouraging and recruiting new members is a key and more than worthy of a few meaningful thoughts.

Our neighborhood is in transition. The homes are 20 to 30 years old and many of the original owners have retired and moved away. The bad news is that membership has fallen off as the core group has aged. The good news is that it is still an attractive neighborhood with affordable homes near good schools and we have seen a significant influx of younger families. It is a perfect environment to attract new members to a supper club.

The key is to get younger people involved. Our club leadership has taken several steps to do so. The club is made up of regular members, who host a dinner party and subs that get invited as fill-in when regular members can’t make an event. Historically, the way we have gotten new people involved is as subs. The good news is that subs don’t have to host and quite often didn’t even need to cook. They show up, have a good time and get more involved. The bad news is that as subs they would get called at the last minute and quite often couldn’t come because of scheduling conflicts. In an effort to get subs and younger people involved, we have started trying to recruit new subs in advance.

Coincidently, a wine club has sprung up in the neighborhood. Many of the participants are younger. The founder of the club developed a website and used it to get the club set up amongst her younger friends. We are trying to get the wine club set involved with the supper club and at the same time adapting some of the more casual features of the wine club into the supper club. For example, historically the supper club has been scheduled for Saturday nights. The wine club meets mostly on Sundays, but moves the dates around and is more flexible trying to get as many people involved as possible.

Growth is a key to success with supper clubs and just about most things in life. If you are not growing as a club, or a person, you have a problem. The good news is that growth is fun. Getting new people involved with supper clubs is a lot of fun. It is a particularly good way to get new neighbors engaged. It is important to make it easy for new people to get involved and lower the intimidation factor. And, most importantly, keep it fun. If your supper club is fun, it will grow.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

Language Can Be Nuanced

You have to love the nuance of language. The same thing can be said the same way and mean many different things. It gets particularly nuanced when travelling and talking to people in a language that is not their mother tongue.Yet, you need to be careful pretty much all the time, even at supper club dinner parties because the old adage is true: “It is not what you say, it is how you say it”.

“I Am A Communist, And I Eat Capitalist For Breakfast”

A friend of mine was in Berlin back in the early 1990’s right after the Berlin wall had come down and reunification of Germany had just begun. He went for a jog in the morning in his sweatsuit and wearing a NY Yankee baseball hat (He is a native Memphian but…?). After his jog he went to a Burger King to get coffee. A scruffily dressed man walked up to David dressed in his American uniform and gruffly announced. “I Am A Communist, And I Eat Capitalist For Breakfast”. My buddy noticed how the Burger King employee taking his order winced and thought: “Now I am in trouble…”. Then the communist smiled and David realized that he just wanted him to know that he liked American food. Language can be nuanced.

“Une Femme D’un Certain Age”

You have to love the French. Not only can they really cook, but they have such a wonderful way with words.

They wouldn’t call someone an:

“Older woman”.
- A woman of a certain age sounds so much better

They wouldn’t say:

“He looks good for his age”
“He reminds me of his father” or worse: “His grandfather”.
“He looks so much older than his wife”
- “Un home d’un certain age” sounds so much better.

A classic example of Une femme d’un certain age was the French actress Simone Signoret in her later years. She was a great actress who was also married to the actor Ives Montand. Ives was famous in the U.S. for the movie he made with Marilyn Monroe, Let’s Make Love. It just so happens that Ives was a first cousin of our International Sales Manager at Kraft, John Argiro. John told us the story of how Ives had an affair with Marilyn during the filming of movie. As John said: “Who could blame him, he was French”. Simone never divorced him. She just made him pay. I am sure that more than language was nuanced.

“OK, OK, OK”

I was once going to Japan to negotiate a business deal. Before I left our corporate attorney, who had lived in Japan for a few years as a young man, gave me some advice: He said if the Japanese start saying “OK, OK, OK” that means they don’t understand what you are saying. To which I replied: “You mean it is basically the same as with an American talking to another American?” Language can be nuanced.

The good news with supper clubs is that if you are enjoying a meal with friends, you are probably on safer ground. It is always a good idea to think about what you say and how you say it, but if you say it with a glass of wine in your hand and a smile on your face, you are almost certainly OK.

It Is The Small Things

What gets both fine dining restaurants their Michelin stars and make a supper club hosts a success? It is the small things. To get a Michelin star (or 3) has become the holy grail for chefs. As a host of a supper club dinner party, you certainly don’t need to obsess over details the way chefs at a 3 star restaurant would, but you can certainly learn a lesson or two.

One of the major revelations after touring wonderful restaurants in Europe is how well they do the small things. Plating can be a work of art. The minute details are designed and arranged to please the eye. It is a fact that we all eat with our eyes. The better chefs know how to leverage this fact.

The tricks developed to dress a plate at a restaurant with stars in the Michelin Guide were impressive. The chef used micro-planed tender young zucchini to dress the plate. He/She seared cheese into lace like heart shapes. Sauces were painted on the plate to add flavor and presentation impact. Pictures do not do justice to the beauty of the presentation. One can almost feel guilty eating.

(Note the Micro – planed zucchini, truffle shavings and lemon zest)

(Note the seared cheese in heart shapes)

The level of service is also impeccable. Chances are that you won’t have just one waiter, but rather a team of highly trained professionals making your meal most enjoyable. Their will be a maître d’, a waiter, a sommelier, a water/silverware guy and a server. All of them are very knowledgeable and well trained. The attention to detail is amazing.

We ate at Alain Ducasse’s La Bastide de Moustiers. Ducasse has restaurants around the globe and has amassed an amazing 21 Michelin stars. He has stated that his goal at La Bastide de Moustiers is not Michelin stars, but rather to serve the food he likes in a relaxed atmosphere. We were served imaginative food, by friendly people in a relaxed atmosphere. What more could one ask for?

(How could you not enjoy a meal in this type of setting)

Inevitably, one thing that is not small at restaurants with Michelin stars is the bill. Here is where supper clubs kick in. Learn the small things that made your meal at the restaurant with Michelin stars special and apply them to your next dinner party.