VEGAN Dork Dinners 1 Month Review

Dork Dinners started one Friday after dancing. Like many evenings, we felt like grabbing dinner together to continue hanging out. It was something simple and enjoyable. Food, people, conversation. Not much too it. Then we thought to ourselves, why not just make this a thing? We can do this every week, why not? Say 7PM.

Take photo, share photo, share idea. It’s the start of something new.

With some added intention, we introduced Dork Dinners to the community. The purpose of our dinners would be the same as our dancing. We are eating, together, meeting in support of mental health. We made it VEGAN because we think that’s important for our mental health, the environment, and animal welfare (themes of wellbeing & justice). 1 Month later, we are excited to share with you the good progress. 

We have officially hosted 5 Dork Dinner events over the course of 5 weeks, rotating thus far between 4 different VEGAN restaurants: Loving Vegan, Khong Restaurant, Chickpea Eatery, and Kurumi Vegan Food, all of which are partner restaurants in our MENTAL Eats Network. 

Rotating between these restaurants has added a sense of adventure, and new flavors, to our weekly meetup. The idea behind rotating restaurants is to support the VEGAN community, while showing our members different VEGAN food options. Each restaurant has provided different atmospheres, all of which have been extremely accommodating. They all have acknowledged a friendly 15% discount for our meals too. The food has been delicious, and we are really enjoying exploring these spaces. Without their cooperation, VEGAN Dork Dinners would not be possible, so we heavily appreciate their support!

With delicious, well-priced food on the table, dorks are excited to meet weekly to share good food & good company. The event started at Loving Vegan with a celebration. That Friday marked our 100th day #dorkdancing for mental health! It was a nice gathering to celebrate some success and kick things off with Dork Dinners.

Week 1 at Loving Vegan, celebrating our 100th day #dorkdancing & effectively launching Dork Dinners.

The next week we visited Khong Restaurant, which was a new place for a lot of our members. Despite HEAVY storms, about 15 or so people still decided to join! This was a real surprise for us. With rains this heavy, we expected less than 10. Those expectations were shattered.

Next week, a similar story. Rain (although lighter), and still a good number of dorks showed up. This week, we visited Chickpea Eatery, which offered an extremely cozy setting. Sitting on the floor, with dimmed lights, during the rain. Something about it was very home-y. It was great. 

One week later, Kurumi was next. Here we did things differently. We took Pre-Orders, understanding the likelihood that things could get busy. We weren’t wrong. Our guess was somewhere between 10-20 would show. About 20 people showed up, making it the busiest day for Kurumi since opening business in July.

Just yesterday, on Halloween Eve, we circled back to Loving Vegan. We counted 25 dorks, more than twice from just one month ago when we started with roughly 10. 

More and more people are coming to our events, with continued support from our base of Dork Dancers. And that’s what makes things particularly interesting. 

Dork Dinners is open to anyone. Combining VEGANISM with Mental Health has strengthened our purpose, attracting new vegans and vegan curious into our community. Strangers show up and we share time and space. They enjoy. They come again. In time, they learn about Dork Dancing and gain interest in that too. Dork Dinners is strengthening the bonds within our community and growing it too. Some of us dance, others don’t. A handful are exploring the idea of giving it a try.

One month in, and it’s safe to say Dork Dinners is working really well. It’s helping us build good relationships. It’s our understanding that good social relationships are a core component of mental health; it’s is one of our leading tenets. 

We’re really excited about the way Dork Dinners has developed after just one short month. If you want to do something good for your mental health, we can recommend a few things…

1) Consider dancing like a dork. In private or in public, and invite other people in. 2) Share a healthy (we prefer VEGAN!) meal with strangers and friends. Do these things consistently over time, sharing an authentic, good intention of wanting to help with mental health. It can bring people together.

Dork Dancing depends entirely on charitable giving. We hope you may consider supporting by either donating or shopping.