Breakfast Clubbing #98
BC is ON in: PDX, Manhattan (Upper West and LES), Hamptons, Williamsburg, Upper West Side, Miami, CDMX, San Francisco, London, DTBK, Manhattan, Cincy, Biarritz and SOMa (New Jersey).
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,
From BC SOMa host JAMES FRIEDMAN: “I wrote a little thing about breakfast club on LinkedIn. It’s both more serious and sillier than intended”
The Real Value of Breakfast. An excerpt:
Ruminating on all this has done more than make me angry at the world, and at myself. It’s sharpened my understanding of why moments of genuine inefficiency in life mean so much to me. This is what Breakfast Club Intl has taught me about economics.
This global network of breakfast hangs instigated by my old friend Ben Dietz is hardly an act of resistance. It does little to counteract the gospel of efficiency. It’s just an hour each week spent with friends and strangers over coffee and freewheeling conversation. But the mere fact of this anarcho-syndicalist community of people blowing off more weighty responsibilities to eat pastries (and french fries IYKYK) together week after week has real value.
Breakfast Club operates without an agenda, produces no output. Attendees have no intention of optimizing anything more than their morning. It draws its power from the very thing efficiency cannot manufacture: serendipity.
Well said, James. Nuff said, too. Except: I hope to see you (all of you/any of you) at Breakfast. If not this week, another one soon.
Cause Everyone’s Invited, Especially You.
Ben
More: Breakfastclubbing.com
Interested in co-hosting in your city? Ben@breakfastclubbing.com
Breakfast Clubbing This Week:
BC is ON in: PDX, Manhattan (Upper West and LES), Hamptons, Williamsburg, Upper West Side, Miami, CDMX, San Francisco, London, DTBK, Manhattan, Cincy, Biarritz and SOMa (New Jersey).
THIS WEEK’S DETAILS:
Tuesday, March 31st
Portland, OR
Co-hosted by Nina Sers & Chelsea Place
9a @ It’s Just a Feeling (new venue)!
Wednesday, April 1st
Manhattan (Upper West Side)
Co-Hosted by Joshua Rosenthal and Andrew Reuben
8:30am @ Le Viand (2130 Broadway)
Williamsburg
Co-Hosted by me and a gang of regulars
8:30am @ Le Crocodile
The Hamptons
Co-hosted by Adam Harris and Ryan Duffy
8:30a @ Tutto Cafe
Miami
Co-hosted by Rachelle Elbaz, 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 Hotel
Thursday, April 2nd
London
Co-hosted by Ramona Daniel and Amy Daroukakis
9:30am @ Foyle’s Cafe, Charing Cross
Downtown Brooklyn
Co-hosted by Kat Popiel and Lynn Juang
8:30am @ Ace Hotel Downtown Brooklyn (Lobby)
Manhattan (LES)
Co-Hosted by Heidi Hartwig and Lucie Kim
9am @ Rule 257 - 234 Eldridge
Cincinnati
Co-Hosted by Theo Erasmus and Emmit Jones
8:30am @ Swell
Friday, April 3rd
Biarritz
Co-Hosted by Maggie Spicer
9:00a @ Spok Cafe
New Jersey (SOMa)
Co-Hosted by James Friedman
9:15a @ Arties
Breakfast Clubbing Last Week:
BC was ON in: Milan, PDX, Cambridge, Toronto, Hamptons, Williamsburg, Upper West Side, Miami, CDMX, San Francisco, Manila, Boston, DC, DTBK, Manhattan, Paris and SOMa (New Jersey). A few highlights below:
Breakfast Club PDX Report 3.24.26
Per Chelsea’s post: On Tuesdays, we Breakfast Club. Amira Jensen Zack Franceschi Carson Wright Randall Garcia Zoe Cope Ligia Babici
Always at It’s Just a Feeling w/ Guilder Coffee Company.
Even when Nina Sers is in Australia.
Breakfast Club Milan Report - Ape hour 24.3.26
Per Charla’s WhatsApp: “Sneak peak from our BC Ape this evening in Milan”
Breakfast Club Mexico City Report 3.25.26
Per Steve’s Whatsapp: “Mexico City this morning!”
Breakfast Club Hamptons Report 3.25.26
Per Tommy’s Post: BK Hamptons - 3.25 - Got some solid polaroid snaps (of almost everyone).
We talked:
- Design, lighting, how lighting impacts everything.
- Photography, how to take dope photos.
- Design, Heidi's schnazzy outfits.
- Graysah pop-ins.
- Meditating.
- Good coffee
- Upcoming travels.
Join us, every Wednesday @ Tutto!
Breakfast Club Cambridge Report 3.25.26
Per Greg’s Post: Great group this week. A handful of newcomers alongside some regulars, and the conversations were as wide-ranging as they get. Live trombone at the Cantab Lounge. The craft and patience of video production. Measuring light from intermittent stars. The Rhode Island job market. The Correspondent and what it got right. Executive coaching and what it asks of people. Books, gardens, farm to table. John Hughes films holding up better than they should. Matt Berninger (The National) recent solo gig in Boston and the joy of live music. Living part-time in Savannah, GA in the winter months. The upcoming Mullen reunion/farewell. Real estate. New York’s impossible contradictions, its energy and its cost, the style and the grind living side by side. The quiet pleasure of traveling by train. Sustainable building products.
We do this every month. Everyone is invited, especially you. Next breakfast club will be April 28th/8:30a at Shybird in Kendall Sq.
with Anne-Marie Kline, Geoffrey Underwood, Timothy Lyster, Dorothy Urlich. Dawa Gyalpo, Emily Hawks, Amy Twilley, Sean Greenhalgh, Catherine Holt.
Breakfast Club Toronto Report 3.25.26
Per Jared’s WhatsApp: “Great turn out Today at BC Toronto!”
Breakfast Club Manhattan Upper West Side Report 3.25.26
Per Joshua’s post: Yesterday morning (3/25/26), Andrew Reuben and I got together for the first-ever Breakfast Club Intl, Uptown Edition. This was all because Ben Dietz stopped me from leaving an event and introduced Andrew and me a few weeks ago. So, a big thank you to him!
This is a preflight for what's to come. These posts will become more entertaining once Andrew and I better understand how we fit into the greater Breakfast Club ecosystem.
This week, Andrew and I were joined by Alexmil Reyes, Haley Schluter, Anne Connelly, Alice Ponti, and Andrian Harabaru. We covered topics spanning: What is Breakfast Club?, who's here?, blockchain isn’t just assholes, biking upstate, productivity time, being born in the morning vs night, conducting vs playing, the symbiosis of team and leader, mushroom cappuccinos, crumbly chorizo is king, threads compared to twitter, the intersection of graffiti and running... and much more.
For now, know that there is another node located just a little more north than Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and the LES. So if those locations are hard for you because you live above 14th, or you just want to make the trek, we will be meeting up EVERY Wednesday at Viand Café on Broadway and W 75th.
If you want more info, Breakfast Club Intl is the "company", breakfastclubbing.com is the site, and https://lnkd.in/ejhXQ4q4 is the Monday newsletter with Breakfast all over the world.
Come Join us!
Breakfast Club Williamsburg 3.25.26
Breakfast Club Williamsburg Report 3.25.26: Lively discussion today; at my end we talked being a human disco ball, offering praise instead of the usual criticism, radical honesty, the Practice of kansai, Steve Jobs and Anna Wintour, speaking of standards, societies that welcome feedback, being Brazilian and working with the Dutch, linguistic acrobatics, moving past the fluffy bullshit, having the language of comparisons, the ‘sandwich’ style of feedback, ring comparisons, Hard Copy at the ICP, the curator Aaron Stern, if xerox copies and YouTube videos are analogous, digital detritus, detritus vs dysentery, visiting from Barcelona, hosting breakfast all over the world, the Lighthouse in Greenpoint, the state of Havana, the uncomfortable lull, the expectation of the audience as a crucial component of any experience, getting the first person to say something (and therefore setting the conversation in motion), starting a conversation series, making a zine, what a Xerox is, nobody knowing who Jesse James is anymore, John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing,” the guy in the gorilla suit video, the failure of a buzz-free SXSW 2026, the pervasive macros, the lack of a collective anything, brain science without practice, projecting your brain on screen, Matt Klein and his forthcoming book, trends in pornography, Mormon housewives on OnlyFans, the critical mass of tipping culture, the quid pro quo of dating today, asking for money for ‘nothing’, the influence of foreign dowries culture on modern American romance, marriage as a primarily financial arrangement, meeting through friends, Steve Bryant and Breakfast Club Intl in Mexico City, soundbars, the podcast ‘Disintegrators’, the book ‘Into the Universe of Technical Images,” and lots more. We forgot to do a photo cause it was so engrossing, but here’s the sign-in sheet...
The crew this morning was me, Eric Korsh, Ian Edgar, Dan Barman, Brad Johnson, Edina Sultanik, Marissa Dubin, Marc Weissman, Jose Castillo, Zaira Stefani Vallejo, Kelsey DeMarco, allie dietzek, Nick Bodor, Lauren Slowik, Paul Greenberg, Cynthia Clemons, Kellie S., Charles Bane III, Leann Abad, Nicole Ingra (all the way from BC Barcelona!), Todd Sines, Carlos Chiossone, Fiona Zeman and Ben Jenkins.
We do this every Wednesday at Le Crocodile Restaurant in the Wythe Hotel and everyone’s invited, especially you. Come hang sometime.
Meantime Breakfast Club Intl is the “company”, breakfastclubbing.com is the site, and https://lnkd.in/ejhXQ4q4 is the Monday newsletter with Breakfast all over the world.
Breakfast Club Manila Report 3.26.26
Per Sharon’s note: Breakfast Club Intl Manila 3.26.26 ☕️
Small rooms. Big thinking.
Here’s what it sounded like:
💘 “Feel-ipinos: We’re a country in love with love.”
🦋 “Kilig doesn’t translate. You have to feel it.”
🎤 Filipino fandoms going global: BINI at Coachella, SB19 at Lollapalooza
🎬 The future of fanfic → from Wattpad to box office hits
🪄 Reverse magic: getting tricked into thinking you’re the magician
🐱 “I can fool a dog, but I can’t fool a cat.”
🍽️ Tablescapes as stories, drawn from art and fashion
🫘 The quiet rise of Manila’s coffee scene, from Treehouse to Commune to Mechanika
🐟 Fish sauce lattes (patis as the new sea salt?)
🌲 The answer to today’s problems might be in social forestry
And a dozen other threads that don’t usually have a place to land. Somewhere between lattes and the backs of napkins, ideas start to stick.
Carla Laus & I are hosting again on April 17th.
If this feels like your kind of room, you’re invited. ☕️
The crew this week:
Eunice Beatrice B., Katherine Diaz, Jose Laurel Delgado IV, Mateus Moitinho de Almeida, Donna May Lina, Germaine Reyes, Gino Borromeo, Karl Alexandré Garcia, Stacey Vázquez, Carmen Vicencio
Breakfast Club Manhattan LES Report 3.26.26
Per Heidi’s Whatsapp: “LES Crew!”
Breakfast Club DTBK Report 3.26.26 Report
Per Kat’s Whatsapp: “DTBK crew this morning! There was a baby & a dog not shown lol”
Breakfast Club Washington DC Report 3.26.26
Per Michael’s Post: BC DC is a time machine!
🥐
This morning we talked about singularity and Coastal Grandma style. Grunge, Go-Go and the work of Natalie Hopkinson, PhD. March Madness and the sorority squat. The Institute for the Future. Dressing like Adam Sandler vs the LBD. Opening Day. Lisbon & surfing at Nazaré. Mess Hill. The Fifth Discipline and the mind of a 15 year-old. Racialicious, transmedia and PSFK. How to chainsaw a tree that's fallen in your backyard. Big Lizard in My Backyard. GlobalHue & sparks & honey. The tyranny of aesthetics. AI blah blah blah. Kids TikTokking in the clerb. Rage vs Sadness & Tornados vs Cyclones. Peanut Butter & Jelly for engineers. Monumental Sports & Entertainment. Yum's Carry Out. Private Equity & Thrift Stores. (RIP Georgia Ave Thrift) Causal Layered Analysis vs Casual Layered Outfits. Doors, windows and the fact that you never wanna die not knowing.
🥐
We do this every other Thursday at The Line Hotel in Adams Morgan.
The next one is April 9th @ 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 Dr. Leigh George Ozioma Egwuonwu Max Walker Rebecca Davis Latoya Peterson Robyn Swirling Michael Hastings-Black Nikki Fraser Laura Pearlstein Mills Mallini Kannan Ted Steyer, M.M.C.
Breakfast Club SOMa Report 3.27.26
Per James’s post: BC SOMa was very big last week. We outgrew our normal table and had to spread over five different tables… it was a good time but a little overwhelming. I couldn’t move around enough to really capture all that was discussed but here’s what I overheard:
Mario Kart, making games, intergenerational hangs, blogging, Bill Maher campaigning for the Mark Twain Prize, Flea’s new jazz album, Jeff Parker’s discography, agism at Spotify and everywhere else, becoming a dermatologist, Burning Man, getting roasted, local principals, unique names, kids containing multitudes, colonoscopies, the Hanky Code, introductions, vacations, Live Laugh Lube, Ronen Givony’s new book about the oughties Brooklyn indie scene, Nonesuch Records, dogs named Gozer, Florida, Detroit, and asking people “what’s exciting you this week?”
Breakfast Club Takes Place Around the World…
Quick Reference: https://breakfastclubbing.com/
Weekly:
Portland, OR [Tuesday]
Mexico City [Wednesday]
Williamsburg Brooklyn [Wednesday]
Miami [Wednesday]
Manhattan, UWS [Wednesday]
The Hamptons [Wednesday]
San Francisco [Wednesday]
Downtown Brooklyn [Thursdays]
Manhattan, LES [Thursdays]
SOMa, NJ [Fridays]
Bi-Weekly:
Washington, DC [Thursdays]
Copenhagen [Thursdays]
Amsterdam [Fridays]
Monthly:
Kingston NY [First Mondays]
Barcelona [First Wednesdays]
London [First Thursday]
Biarritz [First Friday]
Burlington, VT [Second Mondays]
Vienna [Second Thursdays]
Seattle [Second Thursdays]
LA (West) [Third Fridays]
Toronto [Last Wednesdays]
Vegas [Last Thursdays]
Sydney [Last Friday]
Torquay [Fridays]
Melbourne (Richmond) [Fridays]
Los Angeles (East Side)
Hudson, NY
Boulder
Paris
Milan
Lugano
Portland, Maine
Philadelphia
Boston
Cambridge MA
Panama City
Denver
Brighton
Singapore
Bassano del Grappa
Atlanta
Berlin
Ibiza
Montreal
Surf Coast (Torquay)
Dubai
Roma
Chiang Mai
Munich
Riyadh
Palo Alto
Perth