Meeting people
Coffee chats in NYC: meeting people without a networking event
By ToShareAMeal ·
Short answer
A coffee chat is the lowest-commitment version of a shared table: a café, a fixed 45 minutes, two to four people, no agenda. On ToShareAMeal you can plant a Meal Seed for a coffee or a meet-and-greet exactly the way you would for dinner — the format is the same, the stakes are smaller.
Why coffee is the easier first step
Coffee is cheap, short and daytime. If the conversation is good you extend it; if it is not, it ends naturally. That asymmetry is what makes people say yes.
It also removes the two barriers dinner carries: cost and a three-hour block.
What makes a coffee table work
Small and specific beats large and open.
- Two to four people — a café table cannot hold a bigger conversation.
- A named café and a real time slot.
- Weekday mornings and weekend afternoons fill more easily than evenings.
- No agenda, no pitches, no badges.
How this differs from networking events
A networking event is a room with a purpose and a stranger-count problem. A coffee table is three people who all chose the same café at the same hour.
ToShareAMeal is not a professional networking product; the point is the meal and the company, and anything professional that comes out of it is incidental.