A couple of years ago, I started a “dinner club” with three girlfriends: We met at a different restaurant every month for camaraderie and cuisine. It was an enjoyable way to try a variety of dining establishments, stay in touch with pals, and support the local restaurant industry.
I had heard of other such groups, but it wasn’t until last year that I discovered the granddaddy of dinner clubs in Santa Barbara County.
The Birthday Club of Santa Maria formed “out of necessity” in 1923 during Prohibition, which banned the sale of alcohol in America. Birthday Club members gathered at a different home every month, bringing their own homemade libations to imbibe in secrecy, in the privacy of a friend’s house, before going out for dinner to celebrate that month’s birthdays.
Nearly 90 years later, the club is still going strong, made up of 50 well known members from the community: mayors, business owners, doctors, bankers, developers, and judicial officers.
Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville and his wife Vicki are members.
“When we were nominated to join this group, the woman who nominated us gave me a heart-shaped flask to keep my liquor in,” Vicki said.
While liquor’s legal status changed long ago, the club’s traditions have stood the test of time.
“When we first started in this group, I was told there’s only a few rules,” Vicki recalled. “You are required to have three hors d’oeuvres, more if you want, and one of those must be deviled eggs, because there has always been deviled eggs. Every time we go, in someone’s home or in the restaurant, no matter where we go, deviled eggs are there!”
Another tradition kept from the Prohibition Era is no written invitations: “It’s necessary that you call all the members and have them sign up,” Vicki said.
Another dinner club in town goes by exactly the same name. (This Birthday Club sends out written invitations.)
Santa Maria resident Marion Long had attended so many friends’ birthday dinners that in 1988 she decided to start a Birthday Club. This one is limited to 48 people. Once a month, two couples are host to a pre-dinner, hour-long cocktail party.
“You are responsible for providing a full bar, wine, and hors d’oeuvres, and you arrange for where you’re going to go for dinner and everyone pays for their own dinner,” Melville explained.
Normally, the hosts set a flat rate at the restaurant, the menu can be pre-planned, or members can order off the menu; it’s up to the hosts that month.
The groups have done everything from brunches to box lunch picnics to the Great American Melodrama in Oceano to potlucks at home.
“We’ve done it at Far Western. We’ve done it at Hitching Post. We have a number of restaurants that have been extremely cooperative with us: The Swiss, Uliveto’s in Orcutt. We’ve done several with them. [Chef] Alfonso [Curti] is just wonderful, and they set up the back room for us. We’ve gone to Pepper Garcia’s [at the Santa Maria airport] because they have the upstairs room. I mean this is a big, noisy group,” Vicki exclaimed.
“I love ours. [It is] absolutely fabulous,” member Joanne Mertz said. “It’s the only way to entertain, really. A nice way to mingle with the community.”
A couple more club rules: There is always birthday cake, and the group pays for dinner for members celebrating a birthday that month.
“We’re all friends. We’ve got judges, lawyers, doctors, a lot of us are widows,” said club founder Marion Long, whose late husband, Richard, was the former police chief in Santa Maria.
The idea is to keep the group going. New blood is necessary as the membership ages.
“The faces change. As people get older, they lose interest, or they get too busy, or they move. Each club nominates whom they would like to consider as incoming members, and invitations are sent out for those people who have the most votes, and if they accept, then they are in,” Vicki explained.
Several couples belong to more than one club. The Melvilles make room on their calendar for three clubs every month of the year, and they take the commitment seriously.
“There are some nights when you really don’t want to go. I’ve had a long day. I’m tired. I don’t really feel like doing this, but you feel that you are obligated because you’ve made this obligation—and it is an obligation. You have committed to doing this once a month,” Vicki said.
“But you go, and you have a really good time.”
Not only are there two Birthday Clubs in Santa Maria, there are two Clock Clubs.
The tradition was started 30 years ago by retired military service members in Santa Barbara County, when 12 couples invited 12 additional couples, making 24 couples symbolizing the hours in a day, hence the club’s name.
Clock Club members gather at 6:30 p.m. once a month at a host’s home and set an alarm clock for a lively, two-hour “no fuss, no muss” cocktail party, with a pretty good spread of appetizers.
Member Judy Sanders said, “It’s something you can count on for your social life.”
The clubs consist of members from all walks of life, each with a goal of crossing paths with people they would not otherwise meet, building relationships over the years.
“At 8:30, the bell rings. [The party] stops and it’s over, and everyone goes home,” Sanders said.
Then it’s over, until the alarm is set again, like clockwork, one month later; same time, different place, same good friends.
Sun wine and food writer Wendy Thies Sell’s New Year’s resolution is to dine out with good friends more often. Resolve to contact her at wthies@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 5-12, 2012.