A club that throws elaborate dinner parties at surprising sites is about to enter the Columbus market. Dinner Lab, a 2-year-old pop-up restaurant club, began selling memberships on Monday, and the first event is scheduled for early March.

A club that throws elaborate dinner parties at surprising sites is about to enter the Columbus market.

Dinner Lab, a 2-year-old pop-up restaurant club, began selling memberships on Monday, and the first event is scheduled for early March.

The club has branches in 23 other cities including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Columbus is the company�s first foray into Ohio.

�We had just heard so many great things about Columbus and its up-and-coming food scene,� said Zach Kupperman, chief business officer for Dinner Lab. �We are really excited to be there.�

So what is Dinner Lab? It is part culinary adventure, part social hour, part catering extravaganza.

�A lot of it is about meeting new people, having unique experiences,� Kupperman said. �You walk in and you can see all of the food being cooked and plated. You meet the chef and talk to the chef."

Dinner Lab wants to bring cutting-edge food � concepts and dishes not on many restaurant menus � to the masses through one-of-a-kind parties. Each event starts with a cocktail hour, segues into a five-course meal and ends with every diner critiquing the chef�s choices and execution.

The chefs for most events will be drawn from the second string of well-known local restaurants � not the executive chefs: �The people stuck in the back of a kitchen cooking someone else�s menu,� Kupperman said.

The cooks get detailed feedback and exposure; diners get something new and exciting, Kupperman said. To stay in business though, the experience had better be good.

�Like everything else in the restaurant industry, it comes down to how well you execute,� said Dennis Lombardi, vice president at WD Partners, a Columbus-based food service consultant. �It has to be really good. The members need to be really happy after two or three events.�

Members in Columbus pay $125 for access to a calendar of events. The goal is to host about 70 events a year here, Kupperman said. Members can then buy tickets for each event, which cover beer and wine, food and all gratuities. Dinners range in price from about $50 to $95 per person.

Events could be held in a wide range of places, and often, the locations are not revealed until the last minute. Kupperman noted some Dinner Lab scenes: abandoned churches, an old motorcycle factory, �anywhere that is not a restaurant.�

Columbus� first event will feature Chicago chef Daniel Espinosa, a Dinner Lab veteran. Espinosa favors modern Mexican cuisine. He�s done events all over the country for Dinner Lab, an opportunity the company hopes to create for some of Columbus� culinary talent.

�Chefs that do well, we invite them back,� Kupperman said. �If they keep doing well, we take them on the road.�

Dinner Lab is currently hiring two full-time staff members for Columbus with plans to add a few other full-time positions and about 15 part-timers.

The company supplements its membership calendar with corporate catering and private events. Such a setup makes it easy to budget, plan menus, negotiate space and bring down the traditional costs of running a restaurant, Lombardi said.

What remains to be seen is whether Dinner Lab can make a go of it outside the major metros. It�s harder to find the right scale in less-dense urban areas, Lombardi said. New Orleans, where the concept started, is similar in size to Columbus. The Big Easy�s Dinner Lab has several thousand members, according to Kupperman.

�In most cities, we are in the thousands of thousands.�

jmalone@dispatch.com

@j_d_malone