Business Dinner
October 05, 2009
My husband is fortunate. After a dozen years in business, he and his two partners still get along well. But, a couple of years ago, they noticed that their weekly partners’ meetings were getting more rushed and formalized.
So the three of them started going out to dinner together once a month.
“We treat ourselves well,” my husband says. “We go to a nice restaurant. There’s no real agenda, we just talk. We talk about personal stuff as well as business stuff. It’s a freewheeling conversation – politics, what’s going on in the industry. Sometimes we invite guests.”
He says that he and his partners were raised in homes where families ate together, and enjoyed lively mealtime conversations. “We’re used to the give and take. It’s open-ended, non-pressured. It’s a comfort to us.”
He notes that sometimes he sees young people who don’t know how to hold their fork or, more important, don’t know how to have a comfortable conversation with people who are not their peers. He feels sorry for them, and thinks that, ultimately, that will hurt their careers.
“These dinners have really helped us maintain our bond,” he says.
Mealtimes Matter Video
from Miriam Weinstein
About Miriam
Miriam Weinstein is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. As a journalist, she has won several awards from the New England Press Association. Her work has appeared in Boston Magazine, the Boston Globe magazine, Hope, and ParentSource. A former staff member for North Shore Weeklies and freelancer for Essex County Newspapers, she writes restaurant reviews and food columns as well as features on a wide variety of subjects. She lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts, with her husband and has two grown children.
The Surprising Power of Family Meals
In her book, The Surprising Power of Family Meals, Miriam Weinstein shows how this basic human institution helps nourish and strengthen our families today. You can buy this book from our friends at Smucker's® Online Store.
