A
lot of people have asked me how The Lunch Club got started, so I figured
I should write the story. For two years prior to
December of 2001, I had managed to make a living as a Technical Writer,
working from home. I had just moved to the East Village, my all-time favorite
neighborhood where I had spent years playing rock-n-roll music in its
various clubs.
But, as anyone who works
from home can tell you, it often feels very isolating. You spend all day
by yourself and eat lunch alone all the time. All your friends are at
work and no one you know is around. That's how it was for me, anyway.
After spending 2 years working from home in a perplexing duality of having
total freedom yet the feeling of isolation, I began to think of ways that
I could increase my daytime interaction with actual humans.
I had found my new East
Village apartment on the ever-popular Craigslist.
One day in December, 2001, I was browsing through it and noticed the Activity
Partners section for the first time. I read the contents and saw that
people were using Craigslist not only for finding jobs and apartments,
but also for meeting and connecting with people on a community level.
I had always felt that New York was a very difficult place to have a community. It’s a city where
most people don’t know their next door neighbors. Yet here was something
new to me – people using the internet to meet and connect in real
life for purposes other than dating!
I placed an ad to see if
there were any other people who lived in the East Village and worked from
home. My desire was to create a group that I could pass my daytime hours
with – a way to alleviate the sense of isolation that comes from
working at home (or for others, being unemployed). The idea was very simple:
Get together for lunch. Dozens of people responded to
the ad, forming the very beginnings of what was then known as the “East
Village Lunch Club.”
The very first Lunch Club
gathering took place at Café Mogador on St. Marks
between 1st and A. Ten people were supposed to come, but two guys showed
up. It was a new experience for me – sitting down with total strangers
for no particular purpose other than to enjoy each other’s company
and potentially become friends. By the end of the meal, all three of us
agreed that a weekly lunch would be a good idea. What better way is there
to meet new people than by sitting down with them and breaking bread?
I began organizing a lunch
gathering every week and continued placing the ad on Craigslist. More
and more people signed up and soon, dozens were participating in our gatherings.
Back then, I didn't think it as a club - I was doing this because I simply
wanted to meet some people. But then an interesting thing began to happen:
The people that came to these gatherings began meeting and hanging out
with each other independently.
Not long after, we started
having Sunday Brunch as well. That gave people with weekday jobs the opportunity
to join. Then, we added dinner gatherings too. Now we have all
kinds of other gatherings as well, like happy hours, parties, scavenger hunts, gallery tours, pool playing, game nights and many more. The possibilities are endless.
The premise of The Lunch
Club hasn't changed since the beginning, though our methods have evolved
extensively. Every week, "strangers" still come to our gatherings
to meet each other.
The Lunch Club has taken
the shape of a real community organization and has become a full-time
endeavor. Word of mouth has spread and on average, 300 new members join
each month. Even though The Lunch Club began as a way for me to meet some
people to hang around with during the daytime, it has grown to meet the
needs of several thousand individuals with all manner of schedules. The
Lunch Club, at it’s core, is simply a way for you to to be introduced
to people you don’t know, in a comfortable and friendly atmosphere.
That pretty much brings
us to the present. The club is always growing. It has already surpassed
every goal I set out to accomplish. What it will go on to become, I cannot
predict. I am just glad to be going with it. :-)
To find out more about
The Lunch Club, please read our Frequently
Asked Questions.
Privacy
Policy
The Lunch Club has a firm
commitment to protecting the privacy of the information collected on this
Web site. The information collected on this site is not shared with nor
available for use by the Web site host and the site has security measures
in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information
under its control. We do not disclose information that you may give us
to any outside parties, unless required by law. If you have any questions
about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings
with The Lunch Club, please contact us.
Disclaimer
The Lunch Club (particularly
Jared Nissim) assumes zero responsibility or liability whatsover for anything
that happens as a result of anyone's involvement. Membership in the Lunch
Club is without obligation on our part or yours. We reserve the right
to terminate membership for any reason. By becoming a member of The Lunch
Club you agree to waive any and all right forevermore to bring legal action
against The Lunch Club or Jared Nissim due to circumstances resulting
from your involvement with The Lunch Club. Essentially, since The Lunch
Club is open to the public, anyone can attend. We cannot be held liable
for the behavior of individual members or the results of their actions.
Not that anything bad has ever happened, but we need to say it just in
case!
Jurisdiction
This Web site shall be
governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of New York, USA,
without regard to its choice of law rules.
Ownership
This is just legal stuff:
The Lunch Club is wholly owned and operated by Conscious Creations Inc.,
a registered New York State Corporation (president & CEO is Jared).
"The Lunch Club" as well as "Because eating alone is boring"
are both federal trademarks owned by Jared Nissim. All written materials
on this site are Copyright 2001-2004 Jared Nissim.
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It
began in the dead of winter - December of 2001. Between that time and
now, The Lunch Club has grown from a small circle of friends to a community
of over 15,000 individuals.