Strangers grub together with help of new service
Share with others:
Is dining with strangers awkward?
Ask a friend, acquaintance or yourself and you might hear a resounding "yes."
Ask one occupational therapist, one medical researcher and one robotics engineer and they might disagree.
The trio was part of a group of 12 gathered on a recent Sunday over grilled Amish chicken and mango and curry crabcakes at Sonoma Grille, Downtown. Most had never met. All had a surprisingly enjoyable time.
Or perhaps not so surprisingly. The outing had been organized by the IHeartPGH.com blog using a new member of the social networking startups fraternity, Grubwithus.com. Tagline: Eat with awesome people. The Sonoma dinner was Pittsburgh's first Grubwithus event, so the dozen men and women of dissimilar backgrounds were there sharing a similar mindset to meet, eat and be merry.
"It actually IS nice to talk to people who aren't engineers every once in a while," robotics guy Chad Rockey, 24, said in a chat last week.
Ay, there's the grub. Grubwithus is all about bringing together people who otherwise might not meet. It began in Chicago in the fall of 2010 to help its founders, uprooted Californians Daishin Sugano and Eddy Lu, find new friends and foodies.
"Post college it becomes more and more difficult to expand your friends," they say on the website's "about us" page. So it dawned on them to use their love of food to kick-start their social lives.
The site has since branched out from Chicago to include typical food-centric destinations such as San Francisco, New York, Boston and New Orleans. But is Pittsburgh ready for blind dining?
"There's obviously a population [in Pittsburgh] willing to try new fun things. So absolutely, people would be interested in that," said Zoe MacIsaac, 26, the researcher at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and recent transplant from Virginia.
Grubwithus tries to take away some of the stress. While other sites, such as the Pittsburgh Dining N' At group on Meetup.com, advertise similar meals, it's the members who volunteer to plan events. Grubwithus sets up every dinner from start to finish per an organizer's request. Any user -- or grubber -- can create a meal by selecting a date, time, price and theme (i.e., photography, sports, vegetarians) and Grubwithus will find the restaurant -- unless a specific restaurant is the theme.
The site can be used to create invite-only parties, too, for grubbers who want to dine with friends and/or family but don't care for doing the logistics.
The site handles the negotiating for menus, which are arranged family-style. Dinners are prix fixe and include tax and gratuity; prices range from $16 (casual, two courses) to $38 ( creme de la creme, 3-plus courses).
If Grubwithus is choosing the restaurant, it will not reveal immediately where the dinner will be; that's revealed once the meal has reached its minimum number of participants.
"That's a little bit intimidating that you're spending money on somewhere you don't know where you'll be," said occupational therapist Sarah Workman, 24. "I'm glad we didn't end up in a bar. Before we knew where it was, I was thinking, 'Is this going to be at an Applebee's?'"
Unlikely. Grubwithus says it is committed to working with a city's best restaurants to give diners not just a social experience but a food one, too.
"I think it's fun to not know where you're going to eat," Mr. Rockey said. "That way you won't let your biases stop you from going to a potentially great place." Those who can't stand not knowing where they're going to eat and with whom they're eating can take some comfort:
If you're nervous, well, chances are everyone else at the table is, too. Grubwithus, like any good social networking site, provides diners with name cards complete with random factoids to help tablemates break the ice.
You also can see the profiles of grubbers who have reserved a spot at a meal, so picking up the last or second-to-last seat after some mild stalking can help calm you down.
The first seats, however, are offered at a discount, so it lends "more motivation to sign up earlier," said Ms. Workman, who along with boyfriend Benjamin Weaver took the second and third spots for the Pittsburgh dinner.
The majority of grubbers take some time to mull things over.
"I think I took about maybe half a day," Ms. MacIsaac said.
What made her finally press "reserve?"
"I would've regretted it if I had not given it a try."
Look for upcoming dinners at grubwithus.com/pittsburgh.
First Published January 26, 2012 12:00 am
