Breakfast Clubbing #54
W/C 5.5: BC is ON in Paris, Singapore, Boulder, PDX, Barcelona, Miami, Hamptons, Williamsburg, CDMX, Vienna, DTBK, DC, Manhattan, Cincy, Seattle & SOMa.
Hi all,
Writing this from a plane (and you know how that can go, so will keep it short. With so many interesting cities now hosting Breakfast Club it’s hard to pick the one I’d like to visit next (tho the BC Apero in Paris tomorrow sounds great), but I think maybe Singapore (happening as I type this) is top of the list.
Anyway - whichever city, the spirit is the same! Come see for yourself sometime. We’ll be there. If not this week, another one soon.
Ben
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 can subscribe. Join the Linkedin Group here.
Breakfast Club This Week:
Tuesday, May 6th
Singapore (Pop-Up)
Co-hosted by Seraphia Woon and Amy Daroukakis
9:30a @ Grain Traders
Boulder
Co-hosted by Joy Shure
8a @ Skratch Labs Cafe
Portland, OR
Co-hosted by Nina Sers
9a @ Proud Mary
Wednesday, May 7th
Barcelona
Co-Hosted by Kevin Maguire and Nicole Ingra
9:30a @ Caravelle
Miami
Co-Hosted by Jeff Carvalho and Jesse Kirshbaum
8:30a @ Novela Cafe Social
Brooklyn (Williamsburg)
Hosted by me and a gang of regulars
8:30a @ Le Crocodile at The Wythe Hotel
The Hamptons
Co-hosted by Mike Kilcoyne
8:30a @ Tutto Cafe
Mexico City
Co-Hosted by Steve Bryant
8:30am @ TBC (DM Steve)
Paris
Co-Hosted by Karla Rodriguez C and Lisa Ono
19:00 @ Cravan
Thursday, May 8th
Vienna
Co-Hosted by Carla Moss and Laura M. Pana
9am @ Cafe Francais
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
9am @ Eva’s Kitchen on Grand
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
Seattle
Co-Hosted by Mike Burlin
88AM at Oddfellows Café
Friday, May 9th
New Jersey (SOMa)
Co-Hosted by James Friedman
9:15a @ Arties
Breakfast Club Next Week:
Breakfast Club Events Upcoming:
5.12: Burlington, VT, LA (East) 5.13: PDX 5.14: Philly, Williamsburg, Miami,CDMX, SF 5.15: Portland ME, DTBK, Manhattan, Cincy, Denver, Vegas5.16: Amsterdam, Bangkok (Pop Up), SOMa, LA (West)5.20: Tokyo (Pop Up) 5.22: Boston6.4: Seoul (Pop Up) 6.5: London Breakfast Clubbing Last Week:
BC was ON in PDX, Toronto, Miami, Hamptons, Wmsburg, CDMX, SF, London, DTBK, Manhattan, Cincy, Vegas and SOMa.
Selected reports follow
Breakfast Club Miami Report 4.30
Per Jeff’s Post: With everyone in town for POSSIBLE, we had a very full Breakfast Club Miami this week. With so many new names and faces we ran into the early afternoon. Many are staying with us as we jump right into F1 Race week!
This week we were Walshy Fire, Theresa Tran, Brenda Schamy, Sarween Salih, Steven Pollakov, Chris 🫶 Adamo, Erika Golomb, Bill Spector, Raul Sanchez, Caitlin Brinkman, Travis Forsythe, Rae Vaughn Lucas, and Jared Zwerling, Shawn K., and Veny Zorrilla! What a crew!!!
Breakfast Club Williamsburg Report 4.30
Per my post: At my end we talked first times at BC, UX, Fotografiska, coming to hospitality from other industries, working in start ups, Maison Kitsunés, running for mayor, NYC was peak with Revels, the perfect storm that killed micromobility, the liability of Vespas, splitting time between NYC and Cincy, working in brand partnerships, DoorDash, Deliveroo, MIKE TV, the Bris-Vegas Olympics, the origins of breakfast club, the Yahtzee roll of conversations, the Redan brand membership golf wear brand, Tennis Grip, the price of court time, playing in Central Park, commuting from Hudson Heights, tennis as a couples activity, having a toddler in New York, awaiting your first kid, turning your office into a baby room, hospitals that don’t exist anymore, breakfast club Super Bowl pools, messing up the ‘Stussy, Inc.’ S, the origins of the Nike ‘110,’ Liverpool and the Gooners, moving from North Carolina, the US Open, the art of podcast hosting, parasocial media , getting fired for telling somebody they were ignorant (for not knowing who Ozzy Osborne is), getting hella cancelled, the debate-able value of a swagless jackass, the upper echelons of Pillow Marketing, “warbling intellectually” as the new ‘waxing poetic,’ Warby Parker, getting the wrong prescription, the debate about Supreme, the perenniality of Stussy, The Righteous Gemstones, buying more Palantir Technologies calls, Enders Game, war gaming the chat, Sean Monahan’s office hours, growing up a Masshole and lots more.
This morning the group was Joshua Rosenthal, Ian Edgar, Marshall Kuresman, allie dietzek, Steven Avalos, Nikhil Dhanani, Charles Bane III, Paul Greenberg, Michelle (Mishka) Khotylev, Ryan Bingham, Ben Jenkins, Peter Droste, Julie Guest, Mayank Mittal, Duke Nguyen, Nick Cogan, Duncan Harriss, Marc Weissman, Jose Castillo, Zachary Mallard and me.
We do this every Wednesday starting 8:30a at Le Crocodile Restaurant in the Wythe Hotel; come hang! Everyone's invited, especially you.
Info about BC's around the world lives here: https://lnkd.in/eZi3f42n,
Linkedin group is here: https://lnkd.in/eHAWrG6n
Breakfast Club CDMX Report 4.30
Per Steve’s Post: “I feel like looking for gigs has become a lot like meme culture.”
“What?”
“Like you have to be online all the time to even know what’s going on, what’s the latest gig, etc.”
“Well later today I’m training an AI.”
“Say what now?”
“It’s like prompt engineering, you prompt two models with constraints and see which one breaks first, and how.”
“Oh brave new world, which has such LLMs in it.”
“Ok this … I feel like cappuccinos here are mostly milk?”
“I think you’re better off ordering a flat white in Mexico City.”
“I mean I used to work in a coffee hut in Seattle, for like truckers, and make these giant coffees. It was a drive thru.”
“That’s America! Drive as fast as you can to drink something that makes you go as fast as you can!”
“Speaking of going fast, I’ve been reading this book, Slow Productivity.”
“Productivity culture is also, I mean, kill me. The whole dunking your face in ice water at 4am …”
“That’s what’s great about this book! It’s all about focusing and not trying to do so many things.”
“No such thing as multitasking.”
“No such thing!”
“I have some days where I get two hundred things done, and others where I get like two.”
“Ha two would be great. I’d like to get two.”
***
Today we were a devastatingly insightful three, including Liz Jones and Kristen Zwicker!
We do this every Wednesday and everybody's invited, especially you.
Live in CDMX, plan to visit? Join us!
Breakfast Club Downtown Brooklyn Report, 5.1
Per Lynn’s Post: May Day yesterday was full of pollen in the air, spring in our steps, and a delightfully full house of new and familiar BC faces, including: Eric Korsh Donalee Curtis Jennifer Rusk Joy Martinez Erin Hanafy Allison S Chen Patty Marando Nicole Nejati Vicky Gu Christine Y. Danielle Fennoy Duncan Harriss Michael Barth Seth Hillinger Giovanna Maselli Lori Hamilton Alexis Reiner Nick Cogan Thomas Murphy Marshall Kuresman, PMP® Jackie Bernstein
I didn't even make it to the other side of the room, but on our end, the conversations bloomed around: making a statement with dapper suits; should we have a go bag not just for the zombie apocalypse but also just 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘺𝘸𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴?!; importance of having a diverse advisory board; how to pay ourselves fairly with clients; art history being great training for writing BS design statements (𝘫𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨) but also actually being the most all-encompassing, well-rounded major because it truly does touch on everything (𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘫𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨); drawing potential parallels between dominant vs. indigenous cultures in Jamaica, Taiwan, and Hawaii; finding the right words to describe what we do (𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘰).
Folks on the other side of the room, what topics did you guys get into? Post in the comments, and tag anyone I might have missed!
Want in? You know where to find 🙋🏻♀️, Marina Garcia-Vasquez and Kat Popiel: every Thursday 8:30am, Ace Hotel Downtown Brooklyn lobby. No RSVP necessary, no agenda, no pitching. Everyone's invited—especially you.
Breakfast Club Vegas Report 5.1
Per Steph’s post: Vegas Breakfast Club Report! Reunited at Urth Caffe in Henderson, we were Sasha Michael, Sydney Mendoza, Carson Baldwin, Kellie Duffy, Andryanna Sheppard, Jillian Wooten, KJ Anderson, Krissy Isenberg, and co-host Julie Crisman.
💬 Table topics included lots of introductions and gluten-free waffles; ukuleles and tiki bars; finding out about Vegas Breakfast Club from people in LA; how wholesome it is to live and network here; the newscaster voice; people experiencing homelessness; ombre orange in print design; and things we've secretly invented: the reverse microwave (makes things cold fast! like a beer!), a lipliner chain (like for your wallet! so you don't lose it in your handbag!), the life-ending roller coaster (best way to die! you get on but don't get off!), and the iToilet (your playlist! your height!)
Also: "This is a conversation to have over cosmos, not coffee." 🍸
We're going to meet every other week for now in Henderson, and everyone's invited, especially you. 💕
🥑 Vegas Breakfast Club
📆 May 1, May 15, and May 29 | 9am
🥞 Urth Caffe @ The District in Henderson
Breakfast Club SOMa Report 5.2
Per James’s Post: Breakfast Club SOMa has been growing and growing recently. Last week we completely overtook the front patio at Artie's in Maplewood. Every seat plus some folks standing around eating the best pastries in town and talking about all kinds of things like: mani pedis, the physical toll of coaching little league, loving middle age but not loving your parents getting old, living with secrets (both personal and professional), listening to the voices in our heads, how throwing your children around in the pool is the ultimate ice breaker, the bonkers launch of new EV startup Slate Auto, inflation coming for stuff like ice cream trucks and coffee shops, agentic AI, wondering if disruption is actually age discrimination, Rishad Tobaccowalla and De-Bossification, NYC ruining otherwise lovable places by comparison, wondering what happened to manners, and cultural/professional feelings of whiplash.
We do this every Friday at 9:15am
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]
Vegas [Thursdays]
Melbourne [Fridays, alternating between Fitzroy and Richmond]
Amsterdam [Fridays, alternating between locations East and West)
Monthly:
Boulder [First Tuesdays]
Barcelona[First Wednesdays]
London[First Thursday]
Burlington, VT [Second Mondays]
LA (West) [Third Fridays]
Vienna
Paris
Milan
Lugano
Portland, Maine
Philadelphia
Boston
Panama City
Seattle
Denver
Brighton
Singapore
Sydney
Bassano del Grappa
Toronto
Atlanta
Berlin
Ibiza