{"id":523824,"date":"2026-11-09T14:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T14:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/523824\/"},"modified":"2026-11-09T14:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T14:48:18","slug":"sweet-antelope-supper-club-why-strangers-are-saying-goodbye-to-loneliness-at-this-l-a-dining-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/523824\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Antelope Supper Club: Why strangers are saying goodbye to loneliness at this L.A. dining event"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few weeks after the anniversary of her mother\u2019s death, Ronni Minnis received an email invitation to Sweet Antelope, a storytelling-themed supper club. The evening\u2019s theme was grief, a subject that felt especially poignant to Minnis as she continued to mourn her mother. After a meditation in an attic, she sat down to an elaborate candlelit dinner and shared stories of her grief with strangers. \u201cIt was extraordinary,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The experience left Minnis eager to return. Tonight, she\u2019s back, this time with her husband, Michael Minnis, whose birthday she\u2019s celebrating in an unusual way. She surprised him by bringing him to the supper club. \u201cSurprise! You\u2019re spending your birthday with strangers,\u201d she jokes at the dinner table, where pink dahlias cut from the home garden fill the table.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A card of intention burns in the fire at the Sweet Antelope supper club hosted by Kristina Robbins.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A guest reads a dinner placard.<\/p>\n

Tonight\u2019s theme is \u201cgoodbye,\u201d setting the stage for conversations that veer into the provocative and sentimental, moving beyond pleasantries and small talk.<\/p>\n

Kristina Robbins created Sweet Antelope <\/a>in 2023, hosting the storytelling-based supper club in her West Adams home. Each month, she invites mostly strangers to share personal stories over four-course meals prepared with ingredients from her garden and local farms. \u201cAll the herbs from last night were from my garden. All the flowers were from my garden,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Robbins has always loved throwing parties. When her children moved out, she began wondering where to direct her energy. Sweet Antelope became an outlet for her passion for hosting and an expression of her belief that people need deeper connections with one another through storytelling. The name originated from a nickname her husband gave her \u2014 an adorable little creature, yet one that still wields its horns.<\/p>\n

\"Guests <\/p>\n

Guests huddle by a fire in the backyard at the Sweet Antelope Supper Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve really forgotten that, as human beings, we are wired to ground ourselves through our connection to other people,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

For Robbins, the dinners offer something beyond good food and conversation. At a time when she sees people becoming increasingly reluctant to talk to strangers, Sweet Antelope creates space for vulnerability that she believes many people\u2019s lives lack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the most perfect expression of what I feel is missing from a lot of people\u2019s lives, and I felt uniquely able to offer it,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

\"Guido <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\"Short <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

\"Seasonal <\/p>\n

1. Guido Lois prepares dinner during the Sweet Antelope supper club. 2. Short ribs. 3. Seasonal soup. <\/p>\n

Guests arrive beneath bougainvillea vines bursting with vivid pink blooms and are ushered through Robbins\u2019 historic Craftsman-style home, built in 1908 and owned by her family since 2014. In the kitchen, chefs prepare an elaborate four-course meal. Outside, guests sip blackberry tequila spritzes and explore the garden before joining a ritual tied to the evening\u2019s theme: Each receives a wooden totem and tosses it into the fire pit as a symbolic goodbye to something in their life.<\/p>\n

Eleanor Bigelow and Tom Paper traveled from San Francisco to attend the supper club. They had met Kristina 30 years earlier through an improv troupe in San Francisco. \u201cShe was super talented and the kind of person who you remember after 30 years,\u201d says Bigelow.<\/p>\n

\"Cards <\/p>\n

Cards of intention are available for guests as they arrive.<\/p>\n

As performers who had toured a show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival<\/a>, they were intrigued when they heard about an event that married a culinary experience with storytelling. \u201cWe decided to come here because we both are really into organic food and the idea of learning to be better storytellers,\u201d says Bigelow.<\/p>\n

Tonight\u2019s featured storyteller is Madeline Walter, who co-runs the popular storytelling show \u201cEssays\u201d <\/a>with her brother, Evan Walters. Robbins reached out to the siblings and invited Madeline to read at tonight\u2019s supper club.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt very similar to \u2018Essays\u2019 in that she is interested in building a community and an exciting live event that is just not what you see every day,\u201d says Walter.<\/p>\n

Before introducing the storyteller, Robbins explains that after she announces the theme, every guest will have a chance to tell their own story at dinner. The dinner, she says, is a chance to \u201cconnect with people over something other than what we do for a living and where our kids go to school.\u201d<\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

\"Guests <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\"Madeline <\/p>\n

1. Guests listen to Madeline Walters read an essay. (Lauren Justice\/For The Times) 2. Madeline Walters shares a story at Sweet Antelope. <\/p>\n

Madeline takes the stage and begins reading her essay about imagining her \u201cManhattan-feral\u201d husband\u2019s life in the event of her untimely death. She mainly envisions that her husband would not \u201cknow where we keep the majority of things in our home.\u201d It elicits laughter from the dinner party guests. \u201cI need to announce that I\u2019m leaving to open myself up and remind myself that time is limited, and I can operate with a little more freedom,\u201d she concludes.<\/p>\n

After the reading, guests make their way to one of three candlelit tables inside the Craftsman home. Each person has an assigned seat and a number indicating when it\u2019s their turn to share a story. A placard on the table offers prompts to start the conversation: \u201cTell us about a goodbye you\u2019ll never forget.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Robbins, the moments that follow reveal something special about the gatherings. When strangers sit together and move beyond small talk, she says, unexpected connections can emerge. \u201cWe share experiences that become launching pads for conversation,\u201d she says. \u201cSome people go funny, some people go deep.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter where guests sit, they\u2019ll have a memorable conversation, Robbins explains. \u201cAt the end of the night, people will come up to me, and they\u2019ll be like, \u2018How did you know to seat me at that table?\u2019 \u201d she says. \u201cEveryone is convinced that they had the best table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, chefs put the finishing touches on a melon, cucumber and tomato salad as guests prepare to share their own stories. What began as a small culinary operation has grown into a team of chefs who bring their own influences to the menu. \u201cI hire on vibes \u2014 if they\u2019re fun, have a great attitude and have a nurturing, calm presence, and are talented at what they do,\u201d says Robbins.<\/p>\n

\"Guests <\/p>\n

Guests Nicole Montez, from left, Kerry Nicole and Terry Solomon have a good laugh. <\/p>\n

Like the evening\u2019s theme, the menu tells a story. From the melon salad to curried tomato soup and black garlic short rib (which one guest exclaims is \u201cinsane!\u201d), each dish reflects a deliberate choice. \u201cWe are at the end of the melon season, so I definitely knew I wanted to do a melon dish before they disappeared,\u201d says Robbins.<\/p>\n

Her intimate dinners have garnered fans in the culinary world. Daphne Brogdon, who once co-owned the beloved Los Angeles restaurant Tar Pit<\/a> and helped run operations at the legendary Campanile<\/a>, is a longtime friend and one of tonight\u2019s guests. \u201cI think what she\u2019s doing is even more important than ever,\u201d says Brogdon, who believes that supper clubs can be an antidote to loneliness. \u201cThere\u2019s a premium for being in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the dinner tables, conversation flows freely, veering from cathartic discussions of women\u2019s boundaries and dispatches from the psychic realm to memories of departed loved ones and a bizarre encounter with a disgraced rock star that elicits giggles and bewilderment. Fleetwood Mac plays softly in the background. Wine flows.<\/p>\n

As the meal winds down, guest Katelyn Hindin says she doesn\u2019t believe in goodbyes. \u201cI think goodbyes are treated with reverence that they shouldn\u2019t be,\u201d she says before revealing a bittersweet story about a lost family member.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The supper club is hosted in a stunning L.A. Craftsman home built in 1908. <\/p>\n

One of the dinner party guests, Mark Chervinsky, shares a story about receiving an organ transplant, which inspired him to start a nonprofit, Mark Here 4 Life, <\/a>that advocates for organ donation after he connected with the mother of his donor.<\/p>\n

Shortly afterward, Robbins floats through the room to invite guests into the garden for salted caramel pots de cr\u00e8me and lemon balm tea, \u201cgrown and dried here,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

Under the stars, guests swap numbers while sipping from toasty mugs. \u201cThe event was more profound than I ever expected, and a really wonderful way to get to know people very quickly,\u201d says Jessica Hern\u00e1ndez as she prepares to say her own reluctant goodbye.<\/p>\n

Sweet Antelope\u2019<\/a>s next Storytelling Supper Club is Dec. 5, 5-9:30 p.m. Tickets are $185. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A few weeks after the anniversary of her mother\u2019s death, Ronni Minnis received an email invitation to Sweet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[15042,30164,15798,4080,7726,4264,48,52,51,1637,47,50,49,200052,592,200049,200051,23923,200050,38883,23611],"class_list":["post-523824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-conversation","tag-dinner-table","tag-goodbye","tag-guest","tag-home-garden","tag-husband","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-life","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-madeline-walter","tag-people","tag-robbins","tag-storytelling-themed-supper-club","tag-stranger","tag-sweet-antelope-supper-club","tag-theme","tag-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}