Dinner With Strangers at Roof Garden (Toronto, Ontario) - Friday, June 7th
Tickets go on sale on Tuesday, May 14th
you’re invited to dinner
I’m thrilled to collaborate with Chef Jill Hiller, the culinary hostess with the mostest, who is on a mission to create community through food.
Join 20 other strangers for dinner! With the only rule being no work talk, I’ll guide us through questions that skip the small talk and get us talking about where we come from, what we’re learning, and what we care about.
Your ticket includes a welcome cocktail/ mocktail, appetizers, a family style dinner prepared by Chef Jill, wine, drinks, and dessert.
Dine with strangers.
Connect over intentional conversation.
See what unfolds.
details
Date: Friday, June 7th
Theme: What Does It Take To Flourish?
Time: 6pm - 10pm(ish)
Location: Roof Garden - Toronto, Ontario
what to expect
The intention of Dinner With Strangers is to skip the small talk and create space for storytelling, conversation, and learning from each other. To do so, the format for the night looks like this:
Mix and mingle time - question prompts on cards are provided to help get past initial nerves and get the conversation started!
Sit-down dinner with guided conversation - each dinner has a theme. Jess will guide the group through a few questions where everyone is invited to share a response. The intention of this is to give everyone the opportunity to share, for every voice to be heard, and for the group to witness 20 different walks of life that may or may not be similar to their own.
After dinner connecting - Once we’ve all heard from each other and dug in deeper, this is your chance to follow up with someone who inspired you, ask each other questions, float around the room, go down a conversational rabbit hole, share more of your story. Debrief what you’ve learned, and then take home what inspired you. :)
Tickets are non-refundable. Prices are in CAD
risks, benefits, and informed consent
By its nature, Dinner With Strangers is a wild card as far as who shows up, what their history is, and each person’s comfort level with what they are willing to share with a group. The hope is to create space for vulnerability, witnessing each other, speaking from the heart, and telling our truth. Questions are carefully curated that are intentionally open-ended for each guest’s interpretation of how they’d like to answer (or skip from sharing altogether). The aim is to keep the tone of the evening hopeful, encouraging, and introspective while fostering vulnerable and real conversation, and each group brings its own unique dynamic because of how different each of our experiences are.
Which is all to say, a lot could happen at dinner!
I make every effort to create safe spaces for sharing; Dinner With Strangers is an opportunity to walk in each other’s shoes and hear personal stories from each other’s lives - and if you’ve ever lived a life as a human, I’m sure you can attest to the fact that lives can be messy, difficult, painful, challenging, disappointing, and heartbreaking. Your stories and experiences are welcome, as is the insistence that we treat each other with kindness and respect while listening to each other.
Dinner With Strangers is not a place for debate, hot takes on hot topics, or rebuttals or “devil’s advocate” when people are speaking about their own lived experience. Hate speech of any kind will not be tolerated.
From hosting 27 dinners and counting, I’ve found that people are thoughtful and reflective in their answers, which means they may share some personal stories that have sensitive subject matter. Sometimes people even comment that Dinner With Strangers feels like group therapy, which I think is a testament to the fact that we don’t have a lot of spaces where we share honestly about where we’re at and how we feel.
I ask that we each practice generosity in spirit when listening to each other’s stories, and also recognize that some subject matter may be particularly heavy for some individuals. Please practice generous self-care while participating.
By purchasing this ticket, you recognize that sensitive topics may be brought up by other guests during Dinner With Strangers, and you’re opting into a beautiful night of conversation, vulnerability, and uncharted territory as we discover the alchemy that happens when a specific group of people gather with the intention of sharing from our lived experiences.
I can’t wait to meet you!