Meet Blind 8
By Henna J. Shah
One table, eight strangers, and countless stories.
Meet Blind 8 – the social initiative founded by two brothers, Alessandro and Carlo-Alfonso Garza, that encourages individuals to step outside their comfort zones, foster genuine human connections, and engage with others in meaningful ways. Operating primarily in New York City and Washington, DC, Blind 8’s mission is to foster social bravery over dinner at one table, with eight strangers, and countless stories.
Image Credit: Blind 8
Delightfully Chaotic spoke with Blind 8 about their social initiative, inspiration, and community.
What is Blind 8?
Blind 8, in a nutshell, is a dinner party for strangers. It has a very unique take on it because there’s a lot of supper clubs out there that kind of do similar things with their parties with strangers.
But what we do is we go out in public with a sign that says “Dinner Party at Ours?” No app, no phone, no nothing, and we simply just find people out in the wild who are crazy spontaneous to say yes and come to our home, where we host these dinner parties, and open themselves up to a really cool experience.
What was the inspiration behind Blind 8?
So, almost two years ago, we went on our first trip as brothers. Alessandro had just graduated from UNC and I, [Carlo-Alfonso], had just quit my job in consulting and was about to move to New York. We were going to Mexico for a month and were staying at hostels and meeting strangers on random adventures. I was thinking about my move to New York at the time and knew a lot of people from college who were still hanging out with the same people in New York. I didn’t want that for my experience, so I asked Alessandro while we were walking one day,
“What do you think of this idea? I just invite people that don't know each other to my apartment for a dinner party.” He said you should call it Blind 8.
I started hosting them in New York at the end of 2023. At the time, I was working at a startup that sort of failed, unfortunately, leaving me with no money and no ideas. This led to a pretty impactful conversation that we had at the beginning of 2024.
At this point, Blind 8 was just a couple casual dinners. But, one night, we started talking about how I hated my job and started thinking about what we’re passionate about and what moves us and drives us. We grew up in a family that hosted a lot and was very welcoming. I revisited the idea of Blind 8 and with the inspiration from Yes Theory and their sign work, I decided to use a sign to find real strangers for the dinner parties. We threw together whatever semblance of an Instagram we could and made a sign in the morning.
It just felt really different and good; like Christmas Eve was the feeling, back when you were a kid and you knew something big was happening tomorrow.
We went out and did it. It was terrifying at first holding the sign, and it was very cold and unpleasant, but somehow, some way we found our people and pulled off the dinner in a tiny, broken apartment with a makeshift table and seating.
It was one of the best nights that we both ever had.
How did it feel to hold a sign asking eight strangers to come to your apartment for dinner? Did you have any fear of inviting eight strangers to your home?
A common misconception is that we let everyone come that approaches the sign. People think it’s first come, first serve, but at the end of the day, these are our apartments. We care about the safety of our guests, and we care about our safety and our home, and want to make sure it’s a great experience for everyone. So, there’s a bit of a vibe check that happens at the sign. So far the people that we found are great, very pleasant, and very normal people, except for one person who turned out not to be as normal.
We weren’t scared because we grew up with the idea of social bravery, in a sense, without ever knowing what that was. Our parents made us travel when we were younger so that we could appreciate other people and other cultures; they're always hosting and we had an open house feeling. There wasn't much hesitation on our part.
What is social bravery?
The origin of social bravery kind of slipped out sometime during the first toast at the first dinner. Coming to one of our dinners and having social bravery is not an easy thing to do. You are literally walking and minding your own business, and then there's a man with a sign asking you to come to his apartment that day for a dinner. For you to come to dinner, you have to be incredibly brave and social.
It is such a social thing that we are doing. There are not many times in your life where you get to enter a room where no one has any preconception of who you are.
For the first 30 seconds to 5 minutes of Blind 8, you are entering into this human experience that is very rare, and it is very brave of anyone to do so. That is where “social bravery” came from, and it has kind of just stuck.
Social bravery doesn't mean everyone's just incredibly social like all the time.
Although you primarily host Blind 8 in New York City and Washington, DC, you mentioned that you also host Blind 8 in other countries. How does that work?
Talk about delightfully chaotic! We’ve thrown over twenty dinners in New York and over twenty dinners in DC, so we kind of know what to expect in these cities. When we're in a different country and in a different city, we have no idea what we're getting ourselves into. We are just going with the sign and we're going with the principles that we went with on day one. We stand out there and talk to people and see who comes. This makes it really fun and you get to understand different cultures a lot better.
In Barcelona, we had an older lady come up and tell us that she really appreciated what we’re doing because in Barcelona the people are very closed off. That is not something we would have really thought of and that came to fruition in the guest list for the dinner - it turned out to be six tourists and two locals that came. The notion of social bravery is not something they are as culturally open to.
It is so much fun when we host Blind 8 in a different country, but it is stressful. It has never been this whole planned out, crazy, intricate thing. We rely on connections we've made through our lives. In Barcelona, we hosted Blind 8 at the apartment of these girls that we met on our brother's trip in Mexico. It’s very much bootstrapping – we use limited resources and make a sign there and hold it up on the street while people are looking at us and thinking “what is this?” But, at the end of the night, you're looking at the table and watching humanity unfold. To do that and to have that same experience across a whole ocean is nuts and is so rewarding and so fun.
What is the most memorable or surprising story involved with Blind 8 that has happened so far?
For me, [Carlo-Alfonso], I received a message last year from someone who had come to a Blind 8. She sent me a beautiful message saying she just celebrated her first year in New York City, and looking back on it, realized that Blind 8 was the turning point for her to allow her to meet the people that became her friends. This message made me breakdown and cry because she had moved from Abu Dhabi, and for the first few months in New York, she didn't make any friends. She was flying back and forth from Abu Dhabi every couple weeks because she missed having community. She ended up meeting her best friend through Blind 8. To have that level of impact on someone with a sign is what makes it so beautiful. When I go out there with a sign, I know that Blind 8 has the potential to really change someone's life. It is not just a dinner party because when you take a chance and say yes, you're opening yourself up to this whole world and you don't even know what the opportunities are going to be that come from it, whether it’s finding a relationship, a best friend, a future roommate, or a potential business connection.
Saying yes is the first step to something so special.
For me, [Alessandro], I think the best Blind 8 was in Boston. The results of that dinner were really cool. I was in Boston helping a friend move out and move to New York and I posted on Instagram that we were going to host a Blind 8. We immediately got two people, but then it became harder to fill up our sign. Right before I was going to quit, a girl who seemed like she was in a rush comes up to me and signed up. She said that since she was already running late to her first day of work, she might as well sign up to go to a diner party. A couple hours later, I posted an update on our Instagram story, and a girl named Terry messaged saying she was sprinting across the park to get to the sign before the last two spots were filled.
The dinner was beautiful, and we had it catered on a balcony at one of friend’s place. Fast forward, these two girls are inseparable and almost every single day I see them together on each other’s Instagram stories. It’s really cool because they just wouldn't have met had one not been late to work or had one not sprinted across like the Boston Commons to get that last spot.
What is your dream destination to host a Blind 8 dinner?
Mine, [Carlo-Alfonso], would probably be in the Mediterranean on a sailboat.
I, [Alessandro], have a venue answer and a city answer. I would love to do a Cape Town Blind 8. Cape Town has one of the only landscapes that has ever made my jaw drop. As far as a venue goes, I think a castle would be cool or the Sphere in Vegas.
Delightfully chaotic is a term used to describe a situation or experience that is messy, disorganized, or unpredictable, yet in a way that is still enjoyable and exciting. It implies a positive feeling about the lack of structure and the potential for surprise, like finding pleasure in the controlled chaos. What is a delightfully chaotic moment in your life that you think has shaped either who you are or the Blind 8?
I, [Carlo-Alfonso], would describe myself as being also delightfully chaotic and I think my friends would too. A few months ago, we hosted our first dinner with not one table with eight strangers, but two tables with sixteen strangers. We were trying something out and I didn’t realize I had to be a lot more prepared in making food for sixteen people. I didn’t have the kitchen space for that many people, I had woken up not feeling my best, and it was 2:00PM and the dinner was at 8:00PM. I didn’t even have groceries and had to run in jeans from my apartment to the store that was fifteen minutes away. The store did not have all of the ingredients I needed, so I had to run back will all of the groceries and go to another store. I was sweating bullets and I just started cooking everything. I had one person come to help and she asked “what the ****? How do you put on these dinner parties?” I said, “don’t worry, it’s just going to get figured out.”
What makes Blind 8 is different is that it’s not about the food and the precision of the culinary experience, it’s about the experience you have connecting with people that really shapes Blind 8.
I, [Alessandro], want to preserve some of the chaos that’s in it because that's what makes this real and fun. It is what makes each dinner a little bit different. We get the people in the most chaotic ways. It’s not off a waitlist; it’s not off of Instagram. I would say the Guatemala Blind 8 experience was very chaotic. We were on another brother’s trip and wanted to host a Blind 8 while we were in Guatemala. I got there a day or two before and met this guy who was going to host us. When I visited the space, he had Blind 8 set up at a table right in the smack center of a restaurant. We like to preserve the intimacy of Blind 8, and the magic is ruined when a waiter is interrupting the conversation. So now, we were in a race to figure out where we were throwing this dinner that evening. I looked on Airbnb and found a place that was makeshift. They had a couch and a few chairs and we figured it out.
But the story doesn’t end there. The next day, we were going to hike an active volcano. We were thinking, “how are we going to throw a Blind 8 and then wake up at 5:00AM, pack all of our stuff, and go hike a volcano?” Long story short, we managed to get all the people, we threw the dinner, and we woke up, and somehow hiked the volcano. It was hard and it was difficult, but it was a great life moment – and incredibly chaotic. It was very delightful, but very chaotic.
Want to listen to Blind 8’s full interview with Delightfully Chaotic? Check out our podcast, “Delightfully Chaotic with Henna J. Shah,” available on all platforms you stream podcasts.
Henna J. Shah is the founder of Delightfully Chaotic and the host of its podcast, Delightfully Chaotic with Henna J. Shah.