Acting simultaneously, swarms of people dressed in white descend on the lawn of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County on a warm August evening. Toting bags and baskets, carts and coolers, they’re creating the city’s first PopUp Dinner L.A., a mass outdoor gathering that’s equal parts picnic and dinner party.
The event was patterned on a similar Parisian picnic that caught the attention of chef Garrett Sathre, his wife, Nicole Benjamin, and his mother, Elizabeth Hamon. Together, they started Hand Made Events to stage elegant pop-up picnics across California.
In the last year, the Marin County couple has produced four huge alfresco eat-ins in San Francisco, L.A. and San Diego. At each, thousands of guests dress themselves and their tables in white, bring their own food, booze and tableware-candelabras and real silverware are encouraged-and dine under the stars in a location that’s announced via email just hours before the event.
In 2011, Sathre convinced his wife, a social studies teacher, and his mother, a former restaurateur, to stage their first flash-mob picnic in San Francisco to publicize his restaurants, Bubba’s Diner and Kitchen 39.
“Garrett wanted 1,000 people at the event,” Benjamin says. “We don’t even know people who know 1,000 people, so we put out a few media releases. In a week we had 10,000 people on the waiting list.” The overwhelming response convinced Sathre and Benjamin to sell the restaurants they owned and establish a business devoted to staging impromptu large-scale picnics across California.
Sathre and Benjamin learn something new from each mass get-together. At the first San Francisco picnic, they asked guests to leave no trace, but the partiers left behind mountains of garbage.
“The trash situation was a nightmare,” Benjamin says. “My husband and I and my mother-in-law spent 10 hours the next day sorting the trash.” Now they hire professionals for cleanup.
Ticket prices range from $10, which covers permits, security, bathrooms and table rentals in San Francisco, to $25 to $28 in San Diego and L.A. Ticket sales help support local chapters of Slow Food USA, a movement that promotes regional food and advocates local farming as an alternative to fast food.
