[agotterer]

Most of it goes to paying for the meal. We make around a 20% margin. Our cost to operate the business is quite low, but we do invest a lot of our personal time into it. It’s a labor of love.

Our biggest cost center is when we guarantee a minimum number of seats and come up a little short. Doesn’t happen often, but when it does it eats into the margin fast.

[gaws]

> we do invest a lot of our personal time into it

What's the process like?

[agotterer]

My partner and I divide and conquer. He focuses on front of house and I handle the backoffice.

The process starts ~3 months before the event. We start by picking a theme or region. Then contact some restaurants that fit the criteria and pitch them the event. That kicks off the back and forth on cost and menu.

Around 4 weeks before the event we send a save the date + previous event recap email. We summarize the last event and tease the next event, without giving away the actual resturant or type of food.

Over the next week we prep the invite email and payment forms. This requires putting the dishes on our menu template, research and writing about the history of the dishes, the region, and the resturant. Some of this content also goes onto our website.

Three weeks out we send the invite, which is a lottery system. Members have 5 days to request a seat and place a credit card hold. 5 days later we run the lottery (I wrote some basic software to randomize assignment, conver the card auth to capture and release any cards that didn't get assigned a ticket). Then we send an email to everyone who got in with which night they recieved and another email to anyone who was waitlisted. Everyone is added to a spreadsheet to track.

1 week before the event we send a reminder email and a last chance to cancel before the ticket is non refundable.

At the event we play host and check each guest in and say hi to everyone. Then we give a prepared ~5 min intro about the food, restaurant, celebrate any milestone members, and make any general house keeping accounments. Our 20 club members get a branded apron.

At the event we take video and pictures. Over the course of the next 4 weeks we post dish pictures with descriptions and history of the dish on our instagram. We also make a 1-2 min recap video of the event which also goes on our instagram and website.

Separate from the actual event related work we have to manage the books, handle members emails, and review membership requests. More recently we started selling shirts, so there's a little work in managing that as well.

[browningstreet]

Great idea. One note: I had to hunt around on the website for a while to find out what geographical area you were operating in.