As Solo Dining Becomes Commonplace, Cleveland’s Supper Clubs are Bucking the Trend

My grandmother had the best braciole on West 128th St. Everyone knew because everyone was invited on Sundays: her neighbors, her five children, priests, judges, Uncle Mario, Aunt Clorinda. Even Indians outfielder Rocky Colavito.

Those dinners are a 21st-century rarity – a probable byproduct of our culture of detachment. More and more of us, years into the post-pandemic malaise, are exercising solo, going to church less frequently, spending more time scrolling, dating less often and enjoying less sex than we did two decades ago.

It also has impacted the way we eat. The 2025 World Happiness Report says a quarter of American adults eat every daily meal – breakfast, lunch and dinner – by themselves, mainly in their own homes. That’s twice the amount of solo dining that occurred in the late-1990s. And, as the report screams, the practice is making us sadder.

In stark contrast, I spent three months attending a series of supper clubs and communal dinners, run by eclectic chefs, yoga instructors and ambitious comedians. What I found was telling: people are starved for good food and great conversation, so much so that we’re willing to pay $200 for the experience.

Sorta Secret Supper Club

A darkened church during Halloween is as good a place as any to enjoy braised lamb head. That was at Sorta Secret Supper Club, the culinary brainchild of Crobar owner Gerad Guhde. Since debuting – covertly, of course – in 2021, Guhde has partnered with venturesome chefs to craft six-course meals prepped and served at Convivium 33 in Midtown. That October “supper” took shape as a candelabra-lit meal fit for Edgar Allen Poe. Chef Ryan Boone, a compatriot of Guhde’s, toured the 12 of us through themed food-and-drink pairings: spicy micheladas and fire-roasted clams, skull-encased beet salads with Malbec rum punch. Courses that thrummed with suspense each time Boone materialized. “I could do this all night long, you guys,” musician Toby Raps told the table, cracking his skeleton-head shrimp chip. “Twenty courses! Keep ‘em coming!” $150 a ticket, secretsupperclub.com

Santé Supper Club

Oaxaca came to St. James Church in Lakewood for Dia de Muertos. That was Emily Tanski’s concept with Santé: seat 45 strangers at one winding table adorned with tomatillos, marigolds and Lotería-style menus and see what unfolds. Tanski, the founder of Verbena, partnered with Flying Pig Tacos owner Jorge Hernandez to reproduce a food tour through Central Mexico. Though I wished the blue corn quesadillas and tamales possessed a tad more heat, Hernandez’s cochinita pibil, with its slight tinge of habanero, made me a persona muy grata, as did its accompanying pink peppercorn “gin.” The food lowered the guards of my tablemates and me. To invoke hypotheticals (“Would you prefer to be blind or deaf?”) or summon millennial nostalgia (“You guys remember Gushers?”). Even mid-divorce bonding. “Glad I’m not the only one going through this,” said one woman. “Trust me,” replied another, “it gets better.” $200 a seat, santesupperclub.com

Secret Society’s Six Courses of Comedy

What do you call a three-hour comedy show with dinner included? (No, not Sunday supper at my parents’ house.) It’s what David Horning dreamt up as a natural companion to his Secret Society comedy series, dinners that include six courses of food paired with six courses of jokes. The formula must be working; since 2022, Horning has hosted eight dinners, mostly on Valentine’s Day, and often at Heart of Gold in Ohio City. Horning’s series might be the most elaborate in my findings, with comedians and chefs collaborating to ensure that both plates and punchlines will land simultaneously – think a tariffs-era banana joke synced with a plantain-lathered pork dish gilded with gold leaf. A formula so special, Horning says, it’s “re-humanizing.” “You have no choice but to get to know everyone at your table. You’re laughing together; that barrier is broken down.” $200 a ticket, secretsocietycomedy.com

Prologue

The first thing you might notice about Logan Neisel is that he’s in love, followed by clues that he’s no ordinary chef. Trained by YouTube and Julia Child, the 33-year-old former data analyst has willed himself into Cleveland’s food world more by obsession than traditional teeth-cutting on the hospitality circuit. From a rented kitchen at The Friar’s Table, Neisel prepped a dinner for nine that was probably the most cerebral six courses I’ve ever experienced. I’m talking doughy gnocchi shaped into pumpkins; Japanese ikebana flowers with antler-shaped breadsticks; a panna cotta molded into a fricken angel’s head and garnished with cherry confit and gold leaf. (Easy, Neisel.) The sheer thought put into Prologue’s plates was enough to keep guests chatting. “I haven’t made new friends since high school,” one 30-year-old woman admitted. “What better way than over good food?” $150 a seat, prologuedinner_cle

Abundance

Soon after moving from Beijing to Cleveland in 2023, chef Liu Fang and her husband Carl Setzer opened a restaurant to try and recreate the ones they ran in China. And recreate they did – in a vintage diner car in Cleveland Heights awash in red neon and fifties jazz, one called Abundance. (A-bun-dance. Get it?) In November, Fang invited me to one of her monthly supper clubs, a Friendsgiving that paired wines from women-owned vineyards with courses that seemed to squeeze every Chinese region into six plates. Props for the goji-topped scallops and the 24-inch-long beef shank noodle that carried the texture of a cloud. Turns out Fang’s motives stem from Beijing nostalgia, memories of Sunday meals that rotated hosts each week. “We called them floating dinners,” Fang told me after. “It was heavenly. The party starts at two, ends at night. You could come eat whenever.” $135 a dinner, a-bun.com

TimeLeft

I loathe social apps and kept this in mind as I signed up, one day in December, for TimeLeft. Created by some French techie during Covid, the app, like its competitor Dinner With Strangers, uses a personality questionnaire to link you with randoms for a dinner out to be announced last minute. What I mistook as a novelty turned out to be, quickly after sitting down at Lulo downtown, an entire social network. Perhaps even the main social network for TimeLeft regulars – for the corporate relocation specialist, the IT guy in his forties, the Bay Area transplant and single mom who was enjoying her 91st event. “I gave a presentation at work recently, and one of the things I said I did new was have dinner with strangers,” a Sun News reporter said. “And one of my coworkers asked, ‘Like a swingers club?’” Jeff, the IT guy, reared his head. “Wait!” he joked. “This isn’t a swingers club!?” And we all laughed. $15 to sign up plus dinner costs, timeleft.com

Collective Consciousness

There are two rules at Elizabeth “Biz” Rogers’ monthly pot lucks at her yoga-art complex, Pop Life: the first is that it is a place of mutual respect; and second, what’s said at Collective Consciousness dinners is received without judgment. It didn’t take much, thanks to a setting with candles and plush chairs, to feel that to be true. For a nurse to recap a recent psilocybin awakening. For the death doula to pitch us on Quantum Healing. For the three Rogers sisters to deconstruct their “soul contracts” and their complicated relationship with Christianity. Or this writer to wax philosophic on why we’re all so lonely. (Oh, and the vegan chili and quinoa dishes were pretty tasty as well.) That is precisely why Rogers started these little meetups in the first place. “We’re all so separated from society. We’ve lost community,” she said. “I want to have deeper conversations. And this is a place to do that freely.” Free, poplifeconnection.com