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RVA Girl Dinner Club partners with restaurants and other local businesses to host events (including the inaugural gathering at Pink Room in Union Hill) that bring women together.
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RVA Girl Dinner Club hosted a craft night on the patio of Bar Buoy with snacks and drinks.
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An RVA Girl Dinner Club gathering at Penny’s Wine Shop in Jackson Ward
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The event at Penny’s featured focaccia pop-up Still Sunday.
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For Richmonder Becca Haase, gathering over a shared meal is her love language. She lives it daily — recommending places to eat, hosting monthly dinner parties, working shifts at Stella’s Grocery, prepping homemade pasta in her kitchen. A self-described Type-A planner and researcher, Haase is fiercely supportive of small businesses and known for throwing themed get-togethers.
Add a dash of restaurant obsession, and the result is RVA Girl Dinner Club. Launched by Haase in July, the event series invites strangers to meet at local restaurants, bars and other food-centric locations to mix, mingle and make new friends. The concept has quickly taken off, with the next event scheduled for Sept. 29 at Metzger Bar & Butchery.
“This kind of takes a lot of different things that I enjoy doing and that I’ve kind of had passion for, and brings it together, and I can share it with other people,” Haase says.
RVA Girl Dinner Club founder Becca Haase
Haase was home-schooled for most of her childhood, and even while attending Virginia Commonwealth University for small-business management and entrepreneurship, she commuted. Without that coming-of-age social experience via traditional school with classmates or living on campus, she says, “From a social aspect, I didn’t have that immediate circle. When I moved into the actual city, I had to figure out how to meet people. I didn’t know anybody. This [event series] would have helped me back then.”
The desire to gather with others and have a group of friends from all different backgrounds is a generational attribute for Haase. Her grandmother Mimi lived in Petersburg and was a born-and-bred host known for her stellar pound cake and warm hospitality. Around the holidays, she’d share hard candy and peanut brittle, and on Sundays, there was always a big roast. Haase says she spent a lot of time beside Mimi in the kitchen, and those moments left a lasting imprint.
“My grandmother was a big cook, and she always entertained,” Haase says. “She had her own dinner club. She was part of the garden club. She was one of those people that would literally bake a cake for every one of her doctors and was an amazing cook and baker. I guess that kind of rubbed off on me a little bit.”
After a nearly two-decade career with the Department of Defense, Haase quit her job this summer and shifted gears, suddenly finding herself with plenty of downtime and the bandwidth to get creative. In her late 30s, having lived in Richmond for a decade and still struggling to meet new people, she devised RVA Girl Dinner Club.
“It’s really hard to just meet new adult girlfriends,” Haase says. “I thought, ‘What if there’s a way to hold events and see who comes?’ and then there’s always some commonality.”
The response has been resoundingly positive, with the first happening selling out in hours. Haase casually released tickets for the event online in the middle of the night and woke up to texts from friends saying, “It’s sold out!” as has each subsequent event. So far, Haase has hosted a cocktail hour at Pink Room, a tasting at Penny’s Wine Shop with an appearance from focaccia pop-up Still Sunday, an intimate dinner at Lafayette Tavern and an evening of crafting on the patio at Bar Buoy.
Haase intentionally keeps the functions on the smaller side to encourage conversation, with most events capped around 20 people. “I want to have everybody involved, but at the same time, I think there is something good in having a more intimate gathering,” she says.
Ticket prices vary by event and the amenities included. Some bundle light refreshments such as a snack spread and drinks, while others offer more flexibility. During the Lafayette Tavern dinner, guests received a welcome cocktail upon arrival and then ordered off the menu, allowing them to customize the experience to their budgets and tastes. At Metzger, the ticket price for the Oktoberfest-themed event ($28) includes a cocktail and beer mug to take home as a souvenir.
Haase typically kicks off the evenings with a greeting and a conversation starter, such as “What neighborhood do you live in?” or “What is something you’re obsessed with right now?” She’s also happy to facilitate the mingling and matching; meetups have led to hangouts beyond the events, including a blind date or two.
“I think it kind of brings people out of their comfort zone, but in a little safer way,” Haase says. “Everybody’s kind of there for the same goal, which is nice, too, because then everybody’s a little more open.
“I think even post-pandemic, everybody got a little more insular and isolated,” she continues. “I think, socially, people backed off a little bit, and it’s really easy for people to just go about their day and not interact with others, or they’re only interacting through the phone. In-person events like this are such a good way to do that, too. We’ve seen people from all over the city, and what I’ve also noticed is there’s a lot of people that are new here.”
Haase says the goal is to host one to two RVA Girl Dinner gatherings a month in a variety of styles, to broaden their appeal. To encourage attendees to continue their conversations beyond the meetups, she has introduced a WhatsApp thread where past participants can reintroduce themselves and exchange info. For now, she says, she’s not sure what the future brings, but she’s finding the joy from the get-togethers to be fulfilling enough.
“We all live in the same city, but we don’t ever necessarily interact with each other or get out of our groups when we’re in a place and talk to somebody else,” Haase says. “I feel like this kind of helps bridge that gap a little bit.”
The next RVA Girl Dinner Club events are Sept. 29 at Metzger Bar & Butchery and Oct. 29 at The Tobacco Company Restaurant.
