There are people living a few blocks from one another who may never meet. People who frequent the same restaurants, walk the same streets, attend some of the same events, yet remain strangers. That isn’t particularly unusual. It may simply be one of the realities of modern city life. But what happens when we create an occasion for those people to actually sit down together?
On Tuesday, August 25, Come Together: The Newark Table returns for another evening built around that question—this time inside the private dining room at Sihana Bistro in Downtown Newark. The idea behind The Newark Table is deceptively simple: let’s go out to dinner. Not to attend a conference or exchange business cards. And not to stand around a crowded room making small talk while wondering when it’s appropriate to leave. Dinner.
Sit down. Order a drink. Pass something across the table. Learn somebody’s name, tell a story, listen to one, and see what happens.
Making Dinner An Occasion Again
Somewhere along the way, going out to dinner became increasingly transactional. We grab something. We order something. We eat while doing something else. But dining out has historically offered something more. There is an entire choreography to it: choosing where to go, getting dressed, arriving, being welcomed, ordering a drink, considering a menu and allowing a staff of hosts, bartenders, servers and chefs to take care of you for a couple of hours. And then there are the people sitting across from you.
Come Together: The Newark Table was created to make that part of the evening matter, too. At previous dinners, guests have included lifelong Newarkers, newer residents, people who work in the city, people rediscovering it and people simply looking for a different way to spend an evening. Some have arrived knowing someone. Others have arrived knowing no one. That distinction tends to matter considerably less by the end of dinner.
After one previous Newark Table, Marissa, a guest who had recently moved to Newark described how difficult it had been to meet people in a new city. Ordinarily, she said, she might have sat alone, stood in a corner or left an event early.
Conversation without the networking event
The Newark Table isn’t designed as a networking dinner, although connections certainly happen. Guests have exchanged numbers. People have discovered shared friends, schools, neighborhoods, interests and professions. Strangers have found reasons to continue conversations after dinner. But none of that is the assignment.
The guided conversation is intentionally more human than professional. Previous tables have explored questions about our personal relationships to Newark, the things we’re good at, the people we consider heroes and the experiences that have shaped us. At one dinner, a guest described the pleasure of being in conversation with people she might never otherwise have encountered. Another said the evening allowed her to hear herself differently by talking with new people. One guest perhaps captured it most simply, “It was time well spent over a meal.”
A new table at Sihana Bistro
Tuesday’s dinner introduces another chapter of the experience. Guests will gather in the private dining room at Sihana Bistro, where the evening will begin with shared appetizers for each table, including fried oyster mushrooms, Imeruli Georgian cheese bread and falafel bites. For the main course, guests can choose among creamy garlic chicken, the Sihana Burger, grilled salmon, pork chops and chicken Parmesan. Dinner also includes a cocktail, with mocktail options available.
A city becomes a community through encounters
Newark doesn’t suffer from a shortage of interesting people. Nor does it suffer from a shortage of stories, perspectives, restaurants, artists, entrepreneurs, longtime residents, newcomers, characters, thinkers or people doing fascinating things quietly every day. The harder question is whether we create enough opportunities for those people to encounter one another. Not as an audience. Not as customers standing in the same line. Not as usernames following one another.
As people.
Come Together: The Newark Table — A Curated Hospitality Experience takes place Tuesday, August 25 at Sihana Bistro in Newark. Dinner begins at 6:30 p.m. Tickets include shared appetizers, an individual entrée, one cocktail or mocktail, tax and gratuity. Advance registration is required.
