A little over a year after expanding to Baton Rouge, New Orleans-based Dinner Lab, a pop-up dining club that provides up-and-coming chefs from around the country a platform to experiment, has shut down.
In a statement posted today on its website, the startup says it has suspended its operations and is halting events.
“We weren’t able to turn the corner on creating a profitable enough enterprise to support our ambitions,” the statement reads. Dinner Lab, a membership-based culinary event, debuted in New Orleans in August 2013 and expanded to other cities such as New York, San Francisco, Austin, Chicago and Nashville.
Patrons paid $125 annual memberships to attend dinner party-style events held in unique locations. Once at the events, patrons also had to pay for the meals.
The first Dinner Lab event in Baton Rouge was a five-course meal prepared by Chef Mario Rodriguez of New Orleans in April 2015. The Capital City’s growing culinary talent convinced the startup to expand here.
Ellis McKnight, a member from Baton Rouge, says he enjoyed Dinner Lab’s events, but he’s not surprised to hear the membership-driven social club has shut down.
“I had a good time when I went to the events, but they switched them around football season from weekend night to weeknights,” he says.
McKnight says he simply couldn’t fit the dining events into his weekday schedule. It’s unclear if attendance to Dinner Lab’s Baton Rouge events dwindled once the switch was made. McKnight adds that meals at the events could cost as much as $60 to $70.
Still an active member, McKnight has yet to be notified as to whether Dinner Lab will offer refunds, but he’s not concerned about that.
“I figure it’s not worth my time asking about it,” McKnight says.
According to Techcrunch, a San Francisco-based technology news outlet, Dinner Lab raised $9.1 million in venture financing, including a $7 million Series A last year. Investors included Whole Foods Chairman John Elstrott.
The business model, however, was not sustainable. Dinner Lab laid off 30 full-time staffers in December and switched to a contract-based business model for event staff, who had been paid between events prior to the shift.
“We are proud of the work that we have done, and am saddened by the fact that we no longer get to make our living on providing you all the experiences that we love so dearly,” the statement on Dinner Lab’s website reads.
Also according to the statement, Dinner Lab launched in the Crescent City three and a half years ago with the idea of connecting random people with budding chefs seeking an opportunity to showcase their culinary talent.
“We have always wanted to be an organization that rolled the dice on people and innovative concepts before the rest of the world took them seriously,” the statement reads. “We thought that the restaurant industry often took safe bets. We wanted to up the ante, and bet hard on experimentation, iteration, data, and the fact that there should be an open dialogue between diner and chef. We tried to blur the lines, push the envelope, and propel an industry that we loved forward.”
