Supper Clubs and Clandestine Dining

The underground supper club, clandestine restaurant, pop-up restaurant, or alternative restaurant is an organization in which people, often strangers, use word of mouth or social media to engage in a dining experience that is considered alternative in terms of location, dining theme, or setup. (However, in the Midwestern region of the United States, supper club can also refer to traditional family-owned eateries.) While some clandestine dinners are intimate affairs with as few as 4 to 10 people, others might serve upward of 60. Locations for dinners are equally diverse, including abandoned warehouses, the cook’s own home, or a range of outdoor spaces like rooftop farms, abandoned buildings, subway cars, and public parks. Meanwhile, dinners may be based around something as simple as a single seasonal ...