On a recent Sunday, Free Press founder Bari Weiss sent a text to Olga Moriarty, head of community and events, that read: “You should be so deeply proud.” The message came after the latest edition of The Free Press Supper Club, a dinner series that brings subscribers together for face-to-face conversation over shared meals. The concept is simple: seat a group of Free Press readers who don’t know each other at one table and see what unfolds.
But as Olga read an article about one such dinner, she realized the idea might be bigger than it seems. The piece, written by Andy Brehm, an opinion writer at The Minnesota Star Tribune, recounts his evening at a Free Press Supper Club in Minneapolis. At his table, five strangers with different jobs, different lives, and different politics spent hours genuinely listening to one another—an experience that moved Andy enough to write about it.
That same month, thousands of subscribers sat down to dinner together across the globe. Thousands of conversations like Andy’s happened simultaneously. The next supper club is scheduled for September 17, and registration is now open.
Why a Conservative Opinion Writer Decided to Dine with Strangers
Andy Brehm, a corporate lawyer and self-described resident conservative at The Minnesota Star Tribune, made several resolutions for 2026. Most didn’t last past winter. But one stuck: getting out of his comfort zone by doing something that would have seemed insane a few years ago—signing up to have dinner with complete strangers, on purpose.
The occasion was a supper club hosted by The Free Press, the online media company founded by journalist Bari Weiss. Andy remains a loyal reader of his own newspaper, but he believes a balanced news diet requires reading widely. The Free Press is a publication he likes, so when it announced supper clubs in Minneapolis, his resolution left him no excuse but to go.
How the Supper Club Works
The format is straightforward. Subscribers fill out a short questionnaire, a matching system assigns each person to a table, and you arrive at a restaurant with no idea who will be sitting across from you. There is no moderator and no agenda. Everyone pays for their own meal. It’s just strangers, menus, food, and drink—and whatever conversation you can build together.
Andy nearly backed out. It was a Thursday at the end of a long week, and he felt typical Midwestern hesitation. “We Minnesotans like familiarity and to navigate in circles we know,” he wrote. But he went anyway—and was glad he did.
An Evening at The Freehouse in Minneapolis
Five people gathered around a table at The Freehouse in the North Loop. They came from different corners of Twin Cities life: a 3M engineer, a rental property manager, a woman working in Catholic ministry, a finance executive, and Andy, the corporate lawyer. A matching algorithm had decided they belonged together for the evening.
What Andy discovered was something he said he had nearly forgotten existed in modern American life: genuine curiosity and civility. Yes, they talked politics, and no, they didn’t all see the world the same way. But nobody yelled, nobody lectured, and nobody delivered a monologue. His dinner companions, all sharp and well-informed, asked questions about each other’s work, families, and how each came to believe what they believe. When someone offered an opinion that would have started a brawl online, the response at the table was a version of “tell me more.”
The Science Behind Talking to Strangers
Andy drove home in a good mood—and science says he shouldn’t be surprised. Researchers have found that people are happier and feel a stronger sense of belonging on days when they chat with more strangers and casual acquaintances. In one memorable study, University of Chicago researchers asked commuters to strike up conversations on the train. Nearly everyone expected the exchanges would be awkward. The opposite proved true: the talkers enjoyed their rides far more than those who kept to themselves.
“We are wired for connection with people we do not know, and we chronically underestimate how much we need it,” Andy wrote.
Beyond the Friendship Recession
Earlier this year, Andy wrote about America’s friendship recession, citing survey data showing that the share of Americans who claim no close friends at all has quadrupled in recent decades. He argued then that friendship requires intentionality and conscious upkeep. After his evening at The Freehouse, he amended the record a little: the layer just beneath friendship—populated by friendly strangers and one-night dinner companions—turns out to be a not insignificant source of happiness as well. And it’s available to anyone willing to say “hello” first.
Nobody at the table that night changed anybody’s mind, as far as Andy could tell. That wasn’t the point. The point was that five adults who didn’t know each other, and who didn’t all vote the same way, spent an entire evening asking questions and listening to the answers. “So why don’t we do this more often?” Andy asked. “It’s really not that hard.”
The next Free Press Supper Club takes place on September 17. Registration is now open.
