How Dinner for 100 is Bringing People Together
The idea for Dinner for 100 is simple: choose a theme and venue for 100 people, provide good food, make sure everyone has fun. “One of the things we struck on was social isolation,” says co-founder Jacob Stuttard. Hence the tagline: “Bringing people together”.
“One of the things we struck on was social isolation,” says co-founder Jacob Stuttard. Hence the tagline: “Bringing people together.”
In 2020, he left his job as a London bus tour guide and his friend and the other co-founder Jake Bucknall quit working as a pizza chef. And then covid hit. So they dialled down the pop-up events and operated as a pizzeria instead. Today, Dinner For 100 is somewhere in between.
Pizza – “the most sociable food”, according to the pair – nearly always appears on menus. But each of the events takes a particular approach. Their annual singles night, for example, was born from a desire to “fight the dating apps” and help people meet partners in real life. Another early event was themed around the idea of bringing old and young together. “We got texts from some of the older guests,” says Bucknall. “A day after an event, one of them said: ‘I’m still buzzing. Because I’ve spent every Friday night in front of the telly for the past 20 years.’
Now operating across multiple sites – in Telegraph Hill, Nunhead and Bloomsbury – Jake and Jacob are working full-time on the project again. “We said, ‘Okay, this is kind of legit now,’” says Stuttard.
EVENTS
Mam Sham 'Good grub and lols'
"Came for the food, stayed for the mood" runs Mam Sham's tagline. Run by best friends Maria Georgiou and Rhiannon Butler, Mam Sham has become one of the most popular supper clubs in London in recent years.
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