Breakfast Clubbing #46
W/C March 10. BC is ON in Denver, PDX, MIA, Hudson, Hamptons, Wmsburg, CDMX, SF, Bassano del Grappa, DTBK, Manhattan, DC, Cincy, Amsterdam & SOMa
Hi all.
Every week I get new, slightly different kind of encouragement about BC. Last Weds, it was my text convo with Miller Bowron, from NYC, now of CDMX:
This morning it was this WA from BC Hamptons stalwart Mike Kilcoyne, paging in from a “Great Denver crew this AM!”
per Mike’s What’s App Message:
"3/10 Breakfast club Denver [with Kate Gagnon]”
We talked about:
getting rid of dyes
seasonal allergies
consumer products
How meteorology works
The anxious generation
Smoking kills
AI and creativity
Making a good show
[it was] Michael Kilcoyne, Kristin Affatato, Jim Morrissey, Sam Stakel, Amanda Winther Schorsch, Julie Schuster, Kate Gagnon, Carly Cassady, Jorge Cespedes
How about that? Same-day reporting service. And those two are only a pair of the good signs.
Among others:
Atlanta is on the docket for debut on March 19th, under the stewardship of Stephanie Nelson (send your ATL-iens). And Toronto lands on the 26th March.
Vienna, Lugano and Boston are back next week.
And the indefatigable Charla Caponi of BC Milan fame is now starting a second BC closer to her home in the extra-venetian Bassano del Grappa. Not to mention administrating the BC IG (follow it!), and staging for a new Milan edition at the MEGA Art Fair next week.
That’s a lot of work in service of an idea. I take it all to mean that it’s a good idea, then. Hope you’ll come hang sometime. Looking forward to it. If not this week, another one soon.
OK last thing before Breakfast (excuse the self-promo but it’s in keeping):
I organized and am moderating a panel on April 2 in NYC at the inaugural US edition of the Brands & Culture conference. Here’s the abstract:
PODS AND SLETTERS: THE NEXT CONDÉ NAST IS ALREADY IN YOUR INBOX. While much has been made of the sudden death of ZIRP-era digital media and the long slow decline of legacy publishing, green shoots are emerging. Look no further than your feeds for proof: not only will the future's vital media companies come from independent sole proprietors, but that there are already a handful of likely candidates operating successfully - with room to grow - on their own terms. Featuring rising stars of this new ‘superformat’-driven ecosystem, this 'Pods and Sletters' conversation will cast a gimlet eye on what’s working, what’s new and what’s next for the moguls of the coming era. Chris Black - Co-Host, How Long Gone and columnist, GQ.com Daisy Alioto - CEO, Dirt Media Casey Lewis - Gen Z expert and publisher, After School Erica Chen - Head of Strategy, North America, Media Futures Group Ben Dietz - Founder, Breakfast Club and Publisher [SIC]
Come for me, Chris, Daisy, Casey and Erica - stay for a gang of other smart, accomplished folks.
Day Long Passes are here - expense one for yourself of save on multiple tix. Oh, and since you’re coming for me, employ the code ‘Ben25’ at checkout for a 25% discount. See you there!
The Breakfast Club Esprit de Corps:
* Everyone’s invited - especially you.
* Feel free to share, bring friends, colleagues, family, anyone.
* No agenda, no required buy-in, no need to RSVP. And no pitches.
* Everyone pays their own way.
* Everyone is welcome to subscribe.
Join the Linkedin group here: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14449223/Breakfast Club Editions Around the World (cities added regularly):
Weekly:
Portland, OR [Tuesday]
Mexico City [Wednesday]
Williamsburg Brooklyn [Wednesday]
Miami [Wednesday]
The Hamptons [Wednesday]
San Francisco [Wednesday]
Downtown Brooklyn [Thursdays]
Manhattan [Thursdays]
SOMa, NJ [Fridays] Bi-Weekly:
Washington, DC [Thursdays]
Melbourne [Fridays, alternating between Fitzroy and Richmond]
Amsterdam [Fridays, alternating between locations East and West)
Monthly:
Barcelona[First Wednesdays]
London[First Thursday]
Burlington, VT [Second Mondays]
LA (West) [Third Fridays]
Berlin
Ibiza
Vienna
Paris
Milan
Lugano
Philadelphia
Boston
Portland, Maine
Panama City
Seattle
Denver
Brighton
Boulder
Bassano del Grappa
Toronto
Atlanta Breakfast Club This Week:
Denver, PDX, MIA, Hudson, Hamptons, Wmsburg, CDMX, SF, Bassano del Grappa, DTBK, Manhattan, DC, Cincy, Amsterdam & SOMa
Monday, March 10th
Denver (as recapped above - [ed])
Co-hosted by Kate Gagnon, Ben Samples and special guest Mike Kilcoyne
8a @ Populus Hotel - Lounge
Tuesday, March 11th
Portland, OR
Co-hosted by Nina Sers
9a @ Proud Mary
Wednesday, March 12th
Mexico City
Co-Hosted by Steve Bryant
8:30am @
Miami
Co-Hosted by Jeff Carvalho and Jesse Kirshbaum
8:30a @ Novella Cafe Social
Brooklyn (Williamsburg)
Hosted by me and a gang of regulars
8:30a @ Le Crocodile at The Wythe Hotel
Hudson
Co-hosted by Mark DePace and Peter Spear
8:30a @ Tutto Cafe
The Hamptons
Co-hosted by Mike Kilcoyne
8:30a @ Tutto Cafe
San Francisco
Co-Hosted by Eve Lewis and Chris M. Gillespie
8:30am @ Terreene in the 1 Hotel
Thursday,March 13th
Bassano Del Grappa
Co-Hosted by Charla Caponi
8:00am @ Al Querto
Downtown Brooklyn
Co-Hosted by Kat Popiel, Marina Garcia-Vasquez and Lynn Juang
8:30am @ Ace Hotel Brooklyn (Lobby)
Washington DC
Co-Hosted by Michael Hastings-Black
8:30am @ The Line Hotel
Manhattan
Co-Hosted by Heidi Hartwig
9am @ Eva’s Kitchen on Grand
Cincinnati
Co-Hosted by Theo Erasmus and Emmit Jones
8:30am @ Mom and Em Coffee
Friday, March 14th
Amersterdam
Co-Hosted by Sheila Guo
8:30a @ Uncommon Bar
New Jersey (SOMa)
Co-Hosted by James Friedman and Evie Bear
9:15a @ Arties
Upcoming Breakfast Club Events
3.18: Portland OR
3.19: Atlanta, Miami, Hamptons, Williamsburg, CDMX, SF 
3.20: Vienna, Downtown Brooklyn, Manhattan, Boston, DC 
3.21: Los Angeles (West Side) SOMa (New Jersey), Amsterdam3.26: Toronto3.27: Bucks County, PA 
4.2: Barcelona4.3: Portland, ME, Milan
Breakfast Club Event Recaps [Last Week]:
Barcelona, MIA, Wmsburg, CDMX, SF, DTBK, Manhattan, Seattle, Melbourne, Brighton & SOMa
Breakfast Club Barcelona Report 5.3.25
per Kevin’s post: “The MWC Special, although out-of-town MWC attendees were disappointed when asked if we could meet earlier than our normal 9.30 am start. Welcome to Barcelona, you must be new here.
We talked about White Lotus and luxury cycling trips, getting the right mix of supplements, speaking gigs at corporate events, the social etiquette of taking pictures of people on vacation, the ferocity of after-work drinking in the UK and whether "cozzie livs" means a decline in buying a round for your colleagues, moonshine across the world and the etymology of the word, getting drunk as a power play and the joy of a good "druncle," and Anora and the exploration of class imbalance in the movies.
We were a small but mighty four: Nicole Ingra, Lucy Wang, Alessandra Pacheco and myself.
See you next time. Weds 2nd April.
Breakfast Club MEXICO CITY Report 5.3.25
Per Steve’s Post; Anora (fuck yes!) // Emilia Pérez (fuck no!) // Beautiful days, replete with the dulcet tones of birds, living as a tradhusband housefrau in Las Lomas // But also: when your two-year old pulls a mirror down on his head (he's fine!) // Posting thirst traps on Truth Social // True crime in the Mexican Mormon community // Escaping to shoot content in Bermuda // Traveling to Antigua for volcanoes and s'mores // The romance of tiny wine bars // Falling in love in Istanbul // Google Maps indecipherable, because your screen is chock-a-block with restaurants you've saved // The necessity of focusing on one neighborhood at a time // Fit Pass, a savior // Working for a humanitarian foundation // Music licensing for production // Pinche trafico, siempre
Today we were eight including Miller Bowron, Maru M. Iglesias, Michael, Brando, Liz Jones, Laura, and Kharin Gilbert
We do this every Wednesday—everybody's invited, especially you!
Breakfast Club Miami Report 3.5.25
Per Jesse’s IG Story!
Breakfast Club Classic (Williamsburg) Report 3.5.25
Per my post: A special one-off in Bar Blondeau had my table talking about temporary locations, how many interviews it takes to get an offer, earworms, the strategist Nick Susi’s talk about starting a monoculture by starting a war, helping acceleration of the Altadena recovery, the highest tension points being the highest point of engagement, existing outside of timeline, starting a business, the Tao of Trump, not getting Greenland, (not even getting Greenpoint), talking to clients about Tariffs, Mexico City v Manila, congestion pricing, going to the hospital, keeping a streak, knee surgery, being obsessed with skateboarding, hip replacement, Quartersnacks, learning to surf, is content saturation replacing nuance-driven content strategy? Are insights dead as a value proposition? Shotgun storytelling, value over volume, PETA’s bizarre protest at Pitchfork’s zine launch, the artist Trevor Paglen - Fotograf -, Aperture Magazine, gaming the algo, the coming change to the CPA cycle, finding g brands that value and loyalty, the limitation of human capital, the business of memory making, how to price the magic of insight, beach balls as analogy for brand value and lots more.
The twenty-two of us were Alex Corporan, Lee Baler, Anna Wiesen, Nicole Nejati, James Outlaw, Leann Abad, Sami Abdou, Paul Greenberg, Seth Hillinger, Julie Stein, Ben Jenkins, Kalil Greenberg, Jose Castillo, Eric David Johnson aka DJ Bunny Ears, Nick Cogan, Zachary Mallard, Zaira Stefani Vallejo, Randy Paul, Marc Weissman, Sundi Brewer-Griffin, Charles Bane III and me.
We do this every week at 8:30a Wednesdays at Le Crocodile Restaurant. Everyone pays their own way. And everyone's invited. Especially you.
Breakfast Club San Francisco 6.2.25
Per Chris’s note: Overheard today at Breakfast Club
What role do you fall into in friend relationships? Weaponized incompetence. Acknowledgment. Side travel, not time travel. Severance. Work lives. "Healing absurdity." Living outside money, but hunting and gathering it when needed. Village life. Beach bum utopia. Car house and things. Cost of living. The semiotics of influencer culture. Picking up the phone to call just because. Coffees. Parasociality. "People go to NYC to make it. They go to SF to make it up." Freelancing. Brand strategy. Global versus local maxima. Hoarding personal networks. A typically San Franciscan generosity about meeting for coffee just because.
With Magali Charmot, Uzodinma M., Ocean MacAdams, Allison S Chen, Eve Lewis under the benevolent gaze of the exalted ruler of breakfast clubbery Ben Dietz.
Join us every week—8:30am at the 1 Hotel on Mission/Embarcadero; free to all, no pitching, everyone's welcome especially you!
Breakfast Club London Report 6.3.25:
Breakfast Club Downtown Brooklyn Report 3.6.25
per Kat’s Post: Despite almost all of us arriving dressed in a milky tan of brown, we discussed vastly different topics - Disney cruise trips as a microcosm for America, creating boundaries at agencies, Persian Filipino dinner parties, being raised vegetarian in a Mexican home, working for a Canadian company as an American in this current climate, loving/hating White Lotus, how to travel intentionally/respectfully/responsibly and WATERMELON SEED MILK.
This week's crew included: Thomas Murphy Cara Cannella Tracy Candido, PCC Brittany Wengel Peter Gaston Nicole Nejati Sami Abdou
Join myself Lynn Juang & Marina Garcia-Vasquez every Thursday at 8:30am in the lobby of the Ace Hotel / Atelier Ace. Everyones invited, no ice breakers or agenda. A forever thank you to Ben Dietz for sparking this community.
All the info lives at https://lnkd.in/eyvtRq7Z + you can join the LinkedIn group here: https://lnkd.in/eHAWrG6n
Breakfast Club Manhattan Report 3.6.25
Per Heidi’s post: Breakfast Club Manhattan is always filled with surprise guests and worldly points of view. We do this every Thursday 9am @ Eva's Kitchen 349 Grand St. LES. All are welcome especially you! With Alex Corporan Tim Griffin Charles Bane III Henry Lee Zachary Mallard Jonathan P. L. Spooner harry bernstein Matt Lenski Mike Spinella Heidi Hartwig Krussia & Amelia Laia
Breakfast Club Seattle Report 3.6.25:
Per Mike’s Post: We met. We shared. We ate breakfast. 🍳
This month's Seattle Breakfast Club was real. Lessons learned, hard-won insights, career moves, mental health, favorite travel memories and a future full of opportunity.
Thanks for the good chat Sarah Crowe (she/her), Robin Burrowes, Paolo Dee, JD, MBA, Brian Caffarello, David Rosenberg.
If you couldn't make it this month, we missed you.
Our next Seattle Breakfast Club will be on Thursday, 10 April. See event details and signup link in the comments.
Join us. Bring a friend. Share with your network. Everyone is welcome.
Read more about Breakfast Clubbing on Ben Dietz's Substack: https://lnkd.in/g7XQjYv8
Breakfast Club Melbourne Report 7.3.25
Per Celeste’s Post: Melbourne Breakfast Club (Fitzroy Edition) was a great morning of culture and conversation. We were Josh Gardiner Aleksandra Nedeljkovic Hannah O. Anthony Aisenberg
So many threads of discussions:
- Settling into a city can take 2 years
- Claude vs ChatGPT, who has more style
- em dashes and hyphens
- crowdsourcing x maps
- australian ocker heroes (google Barry Clarke Row 1C)
- the (awesome) rise of Asian hospitality in melbourne
We meet monthly in fortnightly, next is in Richmond March 21st with Steph Clarke .
If not this time, join in next, it’s great.
Everyone pays their own way, no agendas and no pitching makes for Friday morning well spent discussing the zeitgeist of the day.
Aldo checkout https://lnkd.in/gCvvZBZ6 for all the Breakfast Clubs around the world, there’s a spot for a croissant and a coffee most mornings wherever you are in the world!
Breakfast Club Brighton Report 7.3.25
Per Amy’s Post: “Everyone is Invited, Especially You” - Ben Dietz
Took on a whole other meaning at Brighton x Breakfast Club this week.
The quirky seaside spot means I needed to ask a few tables if they were “here to meet creative strangers.”
We had one, “why not” joiner.
Sami was a wonderful addition, she shared a complex creative journey and the glimmer of what she’s building next.
She was the poster child for taking both life’s smooth and rough lessons and building next.
I’ll say this till I’m blue in the face - culture, community lives outside office white walls.
- Take the coffee Meetup.
- Knock on a new door.
- Talk to strangers.
Thank you to my epic hostess with the mostess Malex Salamanques Amiel
And such wonderful woman who came together to chat and cheer all types of new beginnings and community.
Lottie Hanwell, Sami Wilson, Goli Lashkari, Nikki Stammers Emma Gage, The Wild Ones
I’m back in hashtag#Brighton again in June and we’ll host another - with a side of swimming post coffee hello.
I hope you’ll come, yes you.
Super keen to kick one off in Tokyo… is it possible?!
it's true, i am a good / funny one