Breakfast Clubbing #84
W/Cr 8th. BC is on in Burlington,PDX (twice)!, Hudson NY, Williamsburg BK, Hamptons, CDMX, Miami, SF, Copenhagen, Portland ME, Manhattan, Cincy, DTBK (tw, Seattle, Torquay, Sydney, AMS + SOMA
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.
Hi all,
Almost there. Just a couple more now. Then we’ll chill
As has been my wont lately, I’m going to throw to one of the BC stalwarts, in this case Nina Sers, from BC Portland (Oregon), who posted:
☕ 🍸 Breakfast Club PDX - Holiday Happy Hour 🍸 ☕ Chelsea Place and I are hosting the first ever Breakfast Club PDX holiday party ✨ December 9th ✨ Open invite to all who have attended breakfast club this year AND to remote/freelance workers that don’t have a company holiday party to attend this year. RSVP Here: https://lnkd.in/gFFDGDnz Everyone is welcome. Find us in the back room.
Notwithstanding the fact that I can’t get out to Portland for it (I’ll be a the DTBK holiday drinks in Brooklyn instead), I’d really like to join the party with Nina and Chelsea and gang because I love the generosity of its spirit, IE: don’t have a workplace party of your own? Come hang with us.
A genuine open door, in other words, to commune, commingle and coalesce (add your ‘co’ word of choice, too). And to find some likeminded folks to do it with. That’s the BC Esprit de Corps, but more than that it’s a good way to live, if you ask me. If you’ve got friends in PDX, send them along.
Otherwise - send them to meet me and Kat and Lynn and the gang in Brooklyn. Or to breakfast at the traditional times in all of the usual spots, and a few occasional ones too.
All the details follow. They’ll thank you, your friends.
Hope we’ll see them (and you) soon.
Ben
Breakfast Club is ON this Week In:Burlington,PDX (twice)!, Hudson NY, Williamsburg BK, The Hamptons, CDMX, Miami, SF, Copenhagen, Portland ME, Manhattan, Cincy, DTBK, Seattle, Torquay, Sydney, Amsterdam & SOMa.
THE DETAILS:
Monday, December 8th
Burlington, VT
Co-hosted by Zach Pollakoff
9:00a @ Deep City
Tuesday, December 9th
Portland, OR
Co-hosted by Nina Sers & Chelsea Place
8:30a @ Proud Mary
AND
Co-hosted by Nina Sers & Chelsea Place
6-9p The Jets Way
Wednesday, December 10th
Hudson, NY
Co-hosted by Peter Spear and Mark DePace
8:30a @ Kitty’s
Williamsburg
Co-Hosted by me and a gang of regulars
8:30am @ Le Crocodile
Miami
Co-hosted by Jeff Carvalho and Jesse Kirshbaum
9a @ Novela Cafe Social
Mexico City
Co-Hosted by Steve Bryant
8:30am @ Mendl
San Francisco
Co-Hosted by Magali Charmot
8:30am @ Tereene at One HotelBarcelona
Thursday, December 11th
Copenhagen
Co-hosted by Diego Marini, Denize Maaløe, Jeppe Pendrup, Daniél Andreasen
8:30am @ Granola
Portland, ME
Co-hosted by Michele Martin & Lydia Wagner
9:30am @ Foyle’s Cafe, Charing Cross
Downtown Brooklyn
Co-hosted by Kat Popiel and Lynn Juang
8:30am @ Ace Hotel Downtown Brooklyn (Lobby)
AND
6pm Holiday Cocktails @ Ace Hotel Downtown Brooklyn (Lobby)
Manhattan
Co-hosted by Heidi Hartwig
9am @ Cecelia (St. Marks)
Cincinnati
Co-Hosted by Theo Erasmus and Emmit Jones
8:30am @ Mom and Em Coffee.
Seattle
Co-hosted by Mike Burlin and David Rosenberg
8:30am @ Oddfellows Cafe
Friday, December 12th
Sydney
Co-Hosted by Elisha Akhtar
9:15a @ Ace Hotel Sydney
Torquay / Surf Coast
Co-Hosted by Steph Clarke
8a @ Ace Hotel Sydney
Amsterdam
Co-Hosted by Sheila Guo
8:30a @ Uncommon Bar
New Jersey (SOMa)
Co-Hosted by James Friedman
9:15a @ Arties
Breakfast Clubbing Last Week:
BC was on in PDX, Barcelona, Kingston NY, Williamsburg BK, The Hamptons, CDMX, Miami, SF, London, Manhattan, Cincy, DTBK, DC + SOMa.
Breakfast Club Williamsburg Report 12.03.25
Breakfast Club Williamsburg Report 12.3.25: Today at the middle table we talked about the music scene in Hudson, Carhartt WIP (Work In Progress)‘s event at Food, the artist Lucien Smith, random pop ups popping up in our feeds, snow in Chicago, artists and chefs not being nice, coming into the city, bus wraps, bus routes in San Francisco, Waymo’s becoming more like human drivers, bodega cats, the historically recent domestication of cats, free-range children, architects designing habitats for alley cats, American Girl doll parties, listening to NSync, Porsche AG design, TOM FORD sunglasses, panel discussions, women in leadership, Shopify’s app marketplace, autone, work crushes, managing childcare and work life balance post-COVID, dealing with the dumb community, knowing what drains you, Library180, personal deep cuts, nerding out on magazines, Jason Thome, VISIONAIRE, totems and tokens, the golden age of magazine publishing, newsprint fashion magazines, Sy Newhouse (sr and jr) printing technology, vinyl manufacturing, monopolism, “The Art of War,” destroying the resources of your rivals, The Business of Meaning Podcast question ‘where do you come from’, Breakfast Club Hudson, self-regulating communities, the sponsored events of today and the golden era of sponsored events, hating from outside the club, the era of constant complaint coming to a close, human design capacity for absorbing grievances, normal trains of thought, art in Japan, agencies opening and closing and absorbing each other, the brand pollution of viral discourse, the only brand-free environments on social being dogma, Danny Cole x Anthpo, gaming the system, the “Marty Supreme” campaign, Timothee Chalamet as the maximum manifestation of Metamodernism (or is it Zohran Mamdani? Or is it K-Pop Demon Hunters?) everybody wanting to be the DJ but nobody wanting to dance, self-surveillance, getting past to the sauna barrier, the no-stakes commentariat, the marketing ouroboros, the HAAC mode era, PoMo Disco and lots more.
This morning the sweet 16 were me, Leann Abad, Nolan Grumley, Marc Weissman, Todd Sines, Ben Jenkins, Allison Sepe, Kelsey DeMarco, Peter Spear, Eric Korsh, Robert Kennedy, Nick Cogan, allie dietzek, Jayson Elliot
Randy Paul, and Nick Bodor
We do this every Wednesday starting 8:30a at Le Crocodile Restaurant in the Wythe Hotel. Everyone’s invited, especially you.
Breakfast Club Miami Report 12.03.25
Per Jeff’s post: People make Breakfast Club Miami a stop in on their morning walk through Wynwood, never mind that Novela Cafe Social Miami (@novelacafesocial), our spot, has one of the best breakfast menus in town and an open air courtyard.
This Art Miami week, we talked about pre-packaged dog foods, art commissions and how to get word around about your creative work. We discuss NAD+ peptides that are the health thing of the moment.
We were Kyle Feigenbaum, CFA, Rachelle Elbaz, Bill Spector, Veny Zorrilla, Nathasha and Mariella.
Breakfast Club Miami Report 12.04.25
One of the things I’m most proud of this year (aside from my Spotify Wrapped listening age of 22 thankyouverymuch) is committing to co-hosting Breakfast Club. In light of the loneliness epidemic, the ongoing tension of virtual vs. IRL interactions, the rise of online communities, and the general assumption that our social circles get smaller as we get older, I’m incredibly grateful that my circles have only gotten wider and richer these last few years.
Which is a perfect segue to some of today’s topics: to Substack or not to Substack about live experiences vs. experiential marketing; are old summer camps the next hospitality frontier?; the joy in getting lost and discovering beautiful new paths and friends (s/o to Tracy Candido, PCC for co-hosting yesterday’s Happily sunrise hike, which brought Dori Fern, ACC to BC today); meeting new people in old places; all of us aging club kids 👯♀️ ; speaking of old, at what age is it just not safe for us to ride rollercoasters?; also, whatever happened to the Fuck Jerry meme account?; British high street vibes; nostalgia around Taco Bell; and the utter delight that is Natalie To’s new flipbook business Flippin Cute!
Thanks to the BC crew today: Jacklyn Baillergeon Joy Martinez Dori Fern, ACC Katherine Danesi Ben Hudson Peter Gaston Kate Hughes Aviva Grinnell Berton Ridley Allan Abillar Natalie To BRANDON SOLIS Danielle Fennoy Donalee Curtis Jeremy Capps Meredith Fennessy Witts and special appearance by Hudson BC co-host Peter Spear.
📣 Next week, you can hang with me and Kat Popiel not once but TWICE!
Join us for a festive holiday toast 🥂 and see what happens to our conversations when we swap out the caffeine for booze. *RSVP at the link in comments.
Tuesday, December 9 at 6pm - same spot at the Ace!
Thursday, December 11 at 8:30am - 2nd to last BC of the year!
Breakfast Club Washington DC Report 12.04.25
BC DC gives a thank.
🥐
This morning we talked about the great Dupont Circle snowball fight and DDB RIP. Government research. Year of the Horse. Improv Everywhere. Mixt Food Hall. Uncoupling. WFH before it was the norm. Folger Shakespeare Library. Being mistaken for a professor when on campus. Umbrella Art Fair and Nuli. Scavenger hunts for adults. ‘Tomorrow problems’. ARTECHOUSE taking over the Uptown Theater. AU Basketball. Flat Stanley and the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District. Mamdani as a brand with a truly true north. Getting up for DC BC can be like getting up for a workout. The Bermuda Triangle, good company culture and traveling for vintage shopping.
🥐
We do this every other Thursday at The Line Hotel in Adams Morgan.
The next one is December 18th @ 830am.
Everyone pays their own way, there’s no agenda or RSVP necessary.
Come and go as your schedule allows (aka - there’s no such thing as ‘late’)
Everyone’s invited, especially you!
🥐
The crew today was Rebecca Davis Jacqueline Balogh Montana Knudsen Kim Fredrich Nancy Bratton Rebecca Drobis Ted Steyer, M.M.C. Jason Kress Madeleine Brown Jim Luetkemeyer Michael Hastings-Black Atin Moridian Dr. Leigh George Josh Feldman Estefania Borges
CC: Ben Dietz Charla Noel Caponi Kat Popiel Karla Rodríguez C.
Breakfast Club SOMa Report 12.5.25
Per James’s Post: The biggest problem with Breakfast Club SOMa? Finding a parking spot.
We’re on to something good. That’s why our table keeps growing as new and amazing people join us to see where a little conversation might lead.
This past week we had a great crew of diehards and a bunch of new faces too. Don McLaughlin, Alan Friedman Khaled Weir Joshua Fischer Karen Wiessen Jessica Gidal Mitchell Black Charles Coxe Robert Miller Jeffrey Bauman and Bakori Davis were there.
Here’s a little sampling of what I heard people talking about: navigating politics at Thanksgiving, whether an unwillingness to sit with disagreement is something new, nazi experts, cosplaying Rush Limbaugh, abusing ChatGPT, getting screened by an HR AI, the pros and cons of doing test work for a potential employer, the prolific career of Jimmy Page, “Hounds of Love,” is “Computer World” the ultimate 80’s jam?, the many styles of Elvis Costello, Tonto’s Exploding Head Band and “The Wonder of Stevie” podcast, “Fela: Fear No Man” being the best podcast of 2025, the Stones, Arthur Baker’s “Looking For The Perfect Beat” memoir, suburban dance parties, are flash mobs always cringe? and lots more.
We do this every week.
Everyone is invited. Especially you.
Breakfast Club Takes Place Around the World:
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]
Copenhagen [Thursdays]Monthly:
Barcelona [First Wednesdays]
Kingston NY [First Wednesdays]
London[First Thursday]
Biarritz [First Friday]
Burlington, VT [Second Mondays]
Seattle [Second Thursdays]
LA (West) [Third Fridays]
Vegas [Last Thursdays]
Melbourne [Fridays]
Sydney [Fridays]
Los Angeles (East Side)
Hudson, NY
Boulder
Vienna
Paris
Milan
Lugano
Portland, Maine
Philadelphia
Boston
Cambridge MA
Panama City
Denver
Brighton
Singapore
Bassano del Grappa
Toronto
Atlanta
Berlin
Ibiza
Amsterdam
Montreal
Surf Coast (Torquay)
Dubai
Roma 