A dinner with strangers sounds intriguing to some and terrifying to others.
Emma McCallie and Dallas Condra, founders of Folx Table — an organization that bills itself as a “sit-down social network” — developed a formula to sell the idea to introverts, extroverts and those in between. Following an incubator course with the Nashville Entrepreneur Center this year and a trip to SXSW in 2023, the organization recently shifted — from larger, more expensive monthly events to cheaper tables across the city on any given night.
What has remained is the Folx table mission statement: connection at the center of modern life.
Through the Folx Table website or app, interested parties can give a date range and choose coffee for 60 minutes, drinks for 90 minutes or dinner for 120 minutes. It’s $14 for the drinks experience, plus whatever you spend at the restaurant, or $10 for coffee or $17 for dinner.
Folx Table grew out of McCallie’s attic, where she hosted dinner parties for people she often hadn’t met before. Over the course of two years, 300 people passed through her doors. A middle school teacher at the time, she introduced a classroom rule of sorts: no talking about work or weather. To help people out, she would sprinkle conversation prompts throughout the room.
“I got really curious about what made for richer conversations, what made for people saying not just ‘nice to meet you,’ but ‘I want to see you again,’” McCallie tells the Scene. “I came to realize that we could have 14 of the most interesting people in the room, and we were still unintentionally going to talk about work and weather.”
Those prompts would one day evolve to become the Folx Table deck of prompts, called The Game. A Folx outing starts with a warmup of questions such as, “What kind of s’more do I like?” or, “What would my camping setup be?” Then it’s on to deeper queries oriented to the future. “What’s something you’ve made genuine progress on that others might not notice?” “What’s a piece of advice you’ve been given that you’re still trying to put into practice?” Wild cards give a break, like repeating everyone’s names or having a thumb war.
McCallie and Condra match people based on their profiles. Each participant gets a role ahead of the dinner, such as “applause aficionado,” “room reader” or “distribution dynamo.” (“It’s a little bit silly, but adults should be having more fun.” McCallie says.) This could mean helping the process by keeping the plates passing, flagging down the waiter or keeping the conversation moving through the prompts.
Emma McCallie and Dallas Condra
McCallie officially established Folx Table in January 2023. Condra, one of McCallie’s original dinner party guests, joined as a co-founder in early 2024. They both run Folx outside of their day jobs. Condra brings a much-needed introvert’s perspective to what may appear to be an extrovert like McCallie’s dream operation.
“It’s a muscle, and the more you work toward it, and the more you’re intentional about it, the more naturally it comes,” Condra says of talking to strangers.
He says introverts are prone to overthinking and worrying that it’s not the right time or way to initiate conversation. The card game takes the pressure off, he says.
“We’re doing all the hard work, so all you have to do is show up,” Condra says. “You don’t have to worry about who you’re going to be sat with, or how to strike up the initial conversation, or what questions you’re going to need to ask. All of that we do for you. It just takes away so many of those barriers that you have as an introvert.”
Folx is designed to be an addition to activity-based social situations. For example, Condra recently had a back injury and wasn’t able to participate in the rock-climbing community the way he did before. Everybody eats and everybody talks, so this allows for a more even playing field, he says.
“Regardless of whether those people become my best friends or not, it’s still such a valuable experience and such a unique way to interact with the world and get to know yourself better, and get to open up to new people in these little small table environments,” Condra says.
McCallie adds, “We try to get to this point of invitation, you’re welcome to have a conversation with these people that you otherwise might not be able to have in your day-in-day-out, or your knitting club or your running club.”
Folx outings tend to end with an exchanging of Instagram handles or phone numbers. Soon participants will also be able to connect with their tablemates through the Folx Table app.
Loneliness is such a common experience, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, McCallie says, that she’s surprised there aren’t more programs like Folx.
“For people to go to the effort to try to figure out what their social life looks like right now — that’s really exciting to me,” McCallie says.
