The Founder Feast App: A Dinner Club in Your Pocket

Most networking apps are built to keep you in the app. Ours is built to get you out of it. The Founder Feast app exists for one moment: Thursday, 7pm, when you sit down with four founders we picked for you, at a restaurant you found out about 48 hours ago. Everything on the screen serves that table.

It's rolling out on the App Store now. Here's what it actually does, end to end, with no feature inflation.

Why we built dinner-first software

The dinner came first. Founder Feast has run weekly Thursday dinners in Vancouver since 2025: 5 hand-picked founders per table, a restaurant we choose, no panels, no badges, no pitches. The app came second, and that order matters. We didn't build a social network and bolt events onto it. We built software around a dinner table.

That constraint decided everything. A feed is only useful if it leads to a coffee, a run, or a Thursday reservation. Chat is only useful if it means you walk into the restaurant already knowing something about your table. If a feature would make the app stickier but the dinners no better, it doesn't ship. For the longer argument about why a table of five beats a room of two hundred, read why founder dinners work.

Applying from your phone

Everything starts with the application. You apply exactly once: tell us who you are and what you're building, and we review it. Every member is vetted, which is the entire reason the tables work. The application in the app is the same one on the web, so start wherever your thumb happens to be and finish in one sitting.

Reserving a Thursday

Once you're in, the core loop is one screen: pick any Thursday in your city and reserve your seat. Dinner is weekly at 7pm in Vancouver, and weekly in San Francisco and Los Angeles starting September 3, 2026. Still deciding which coast you're on? We wrote an honest SF vs LA startup scene comparison for exactly that.

Membership is $49 a month and covers your seat at every dinner, cancel anytime. You pay the restaurant for what you eat, so there's no markup hiding in the food.

The 48-hour reveal

Two days before dinner, your phone tells you where you're going. The restaurant and your table drop 48 hours ahead, and that's deliberate. You commit to the people first and learn the venue second, which keeps the decision about who's at the table instead of what's on the menu. In practice the reveal has become the best notification of the week: Tuesday evening, a restaurant you didn't pick, four names you're about to know.

Between dinners

The rest of the app keeps the week connected to the table:

• Member directory. Every vetted founder in your city, in one place. When Thursday's conversation turns into "you should meet my friend who solved that," the friend is findable.
• Community feed. Members propose coffees, runs, and hikes between dinners, free to join. These are additional benefits on top of dinner, and they're where a tablemate becomes a training partner.
• Chats. A thread with your table and a thread with your whole city. Table chat is for the walk-in and the follow-up. City chat is for everything else.
• The map. A map of member activity in your city, so you can see where things are happening without scrolling for it.

Membership, managed in-app

Your membership lives in the app too: subscribe, manage it, cancel anytime. No support ticket, no hunting through emails. The same controls exist on the web, because your membership belongs to you, not to a device.

iOS now, web always

The app is launching now on iOS, rolling out on the App Store. And everything it does also works on the web: the same member area lives at founderfeast.com, with the application, reservations, the reveal, the directory, the feed, and chats all in the browser. If you're on Android, you get the full experience today at the same address.

We should be clear about what the app is not. It's not a place to build an audience, farm connections, or replace showing up. Plenty of tools already do the online part well, and we compared them honestly in our roundup of apps founders use to meet each other in 2026. This one is different on purpose: the product is the dinner, and the app is how the dinner fits in your pocket.

If that sounds like your kind of software, apply for a seat. It takes a few minutes, we read every application, and Thursday comes around weekly.

Common questions

What is the Founder Feast app? The Founder Feast app is the iOS companion to a dinner club for founders in Vancouver, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. You apply, reserve weekly Thursday dinners, get the restaurant reveal 48 hours before, browse the member directory, and chat with your table and city. Everything also works at founderfeast.com.

Is the Founder Feast app free to download? Downloading the app and applying are free. Attending dinners requires membership at $49 a month, which covers your seat at every weekly dinner in your city, cancel anytime. At the restaurant you simply pay for what you eat. Coffees, runs, and hikes proposed by members are free to join.

How do I join Founder Feast? Apply once, from the app or at founderfeast.com/apply. Every member is vetted: we read applications and hand-pick tables of 5 founders. Once you are in, membership is $49 a month and covers your seat at every weekly Thursday dinner in your city, cancel anytime.

Is the Founder Feast app available on Android? The app is rolling out on iOS first. Android users are not locked out: the full member area, including the application, reservations, the 48-hour reveal, the directory, the feed, and chats, works in any browser at founderfeast.com. Your membership is identical either way.

What cities does Founder Feast operate in? Vancouver, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Vancouver has hosted weekly Thursday dinners since 2025. San Francisco and Los Angeles both launch Thursday, September 3, 2026, and run weekly from there. Dinners are at 7pm at a restaurant we choose, revealed 48 hours before.