The Beginning
Imagine, you get an invitation to an invite-only, pop-up restaurant with top chefs serving meals, and it’s all complimentary. Complimentary to attend and to eat. Instead of a bill with tax and gratuities included at the completion of your dinner, the price of the meal is placed in your hands and you’re allowed to leave whatever you believe your experience to be valued at. Then, to top it off, for every meal that is rated well, a meal is given away to someone who cannot afford one. That is what Fork and Spoon LV is all about.
Inspired by the rich history of supper clubs, which began in Beverly, Hills California by Milwaukee, Wisconsin native Lawrence Frank, Fork & Spoon was started. A concept popular during the 1930’s and 1940’s, supper clubs were popularly known as small underground social clubs. A unique dining destination experience where the locations always changed and the next sites were only revealed to the guests, once a ticket had been purchased. Allowing every separate dinner destination one may attend completely different from the previous one.
The idea for Fork & Spoon came from the group’s original Monday night servings. The team was already serving the less fortunate community fresh food every Monday along with supplying them with clothing, hygiene products, haircuts, and love. They had been leading these missions for two years when the idea of providing opportunities for those who would like to pay it forward, but are not the types to go out and participate in the physical doings of giving back came about.
“A pay it forward restaurant (Fork & Spoon) gave people a safe platform to give back in a way that was already aligned with their lifestyles,” stated Siloh Moses, founder of Fork and Spoon LV.
Fork and Spoon has grown into a company that maintains the history of supper clubs being private and invite only but with a twist. Members are granted direct access to some of the best and most talented chefs in the Western region. Members say that one of the biggest motivators to joining Fork & Spoon, besides the one-night only experience of exclusive hand-crafted meals that you cannot find anywhere else, is their active role in social responsibility for giving back to the local community. Their ‘secret restaurant’ was started with one simple goal in mind, bring great people together from the community over great food, in a fantastic environment and add a give back component that ‘pays it forward’ to those who are less fortunate. Food lovers with big hearts, that want to give back, finally have a place to call home.
The appealing part about Fork and Spoon is how they keep the rich history of supper clubs alive in today’s generation. “Supper clubs in the early-mid 1940s (when they were most popular and originated) were a place to go and connect. A place where you had to know somebody to get in and had to be ‘in the know’ to know where the next one was taking place because they moved locations month to month, never at the same location twice. “We keep that same tradition alive today and what makes them special in today’s society is the feeling of connecting again to humanity without the use of technology or cell phones. We don’t allow cell phones at our dinner parties and believe it or not, this has been a big hit! What makes our supper club so appealing is that you have to talk to the people you are dining across from at our events, versus simply just liking their photo on social media. We bring the connection back to connecting and our guests love it,” Moses said.
Since Winning Get Started
“Since winning, we have picked up in members number because we are a private and invite only dinner club and are in the talks with an investor who is interested in teaming up to get us a food truck to take our pay it forward dinner parties mobile,” Moses stated. Beyond that is compliments and constantly raising awareness of the cause and more publicity.
With every new venture, there are always some obstacles that may get in the way. For Fork and Spoon the toughest part for them is remaining profitable. “Since we are a supper club that is free to become a member, free to attend and free to eat (instead of a bill at the end of the night, we ask those that do attend to leave whatever they believe their experience to valued at – a first in the history of Supper Clubs and dinner parties) it’s tough to remain profitable. We host our dinner parties with a fresh, four course meal that has been hand crafted and created from scratch by personal chefs. All of the food for the night is prepaid to accommodate our members and their invited guest for the night. When members unfortunately do not show, because life got in the way, change their reservations at the last minute, or show up with less guests than they anticipated…well those four plates of food per person that was purchased a head of time has now gone to waste and we suffer that loss. An example would be, four members who no showed times four plates of food per person is thirty six plates of food wasted. So trying to stay profitable with every dinner party is still a very big challenge for us,” said Moses.
What’s Up Next
Once Fork and Spoon LV tweak a few things here and there, they plan on getting their waste and loss under control and then taking Fork & Spoon LV to other cities and states where they have a big less fortunate (homeless) challenge. The concept is still amazing. For every seat that is sat in at these dinner parties, they gift food away to someone who can’t afford it, locally, and that motivates them to keep going. Knowing that at the end of the day, someone is going to be served that otherwise would have gone without is what truly drives this amazing cause and team.
When it comes to advice for those starting their own new business, Moses says, “Just do it. Follow your dreams and who cares if you do not have it all planned out just yet, just do it. When I started Fork & Spoon LV, I knew nothing about the restaurant business. I didn’t know any professionally trained chefs and the closest I came to running a restaurant was eating in one. In just six weeks, I had thrown my first dinner party with over sixty five guests, fourteen staff members, and one ‘celebrity’ chef who knocked it out of the park! He killed it! So if you don’t have it all planned out just yet, who cares, just do it! You’ll regret it in long run if you don’t.”