— In an industrial corridor outside Palm Springs, silent and still after most everyone had fled with the sunset, Grant Calkins and his wife, Janna, crept into a warehouse. They peered around, wondering if they were in the right place.
Grant had stumbled upon the website of an underground supper club, and, intrigued by photos of the group's previous gatherings, the couple paid nearly $100 each for seats at PS Underground's event. They had no inkling as to what or where they would be fed. They had received only a one-word clue: craft.
Just hours before the event, the Calkinses got an email with directions and a command: Do not Google the address.
Photos: Inside secret supper clubs
As they followed the final steps on the directions, the couple grew only more perplexed. They drove through an area so desolate it seemed more like the place where James Bond would go to have a clandestine rendezvous than to sip a cocktail.
They entered the back of a building, where they were welcomed by imposing stainless-steel vats and valves. But a little farther in, there it was: a wooden farm table, decorated in autumn colors, with carnations and settings for 30.
The concept of the secretive supper club is driven by their exclusivity and intimacy, with nights that might involve a much-lauded chef or an unusual or surreptitious location. Some are centered on a theme (vegetarian Indian food) or a gimmick (make your own meals).
These culinary speak-easies have spread beyond the über-trendy Westside and the tri-hipster area to places like Palm Springs, where residents hope to get a taste of some fine dining. If that means driving to a dark, seemingly uninhabited location in a quest for a singular experience, then so be it.
Evolution of a party
In the cavernous Coachella Valley Brewing Co., the latest vision of Michael Fietsam and David Horgen was coming to life.
The Cathedral City couple had built a reputation among friends for evenings that weren't so much dinner parties as spectacles that came with a feast.
PS Underground came about when those friends encouraged them to expand their parties beyond their social circle. It would be like an intimate pop-up restaurant every month, invigorating the Palm Springs food scene for locals in search of something new.
"We didn't start this to make a lot of money or build a business," said Fietsam, 47, a hospitality consultant. "We wanted to spread our love of entertaining. That's more reward than anything else."
There's also the constant challenge of coming up with nights that will mystify and astound their guests.
They marked the 101st anniversary of the Titanic sinking by instructing guests to come dressed like aristocrats of the early 20th century. Dinner included roasted squab, wilted cress, asparagus with a Champagne saffron vinaigrette — the same menu served in the first-class dining room on the ship's final night.
They invoked 1960s Palm Springs with a night they called Nod to Mod and celebrated Halloween by eating roasted pumpkin risotto and herb-encrusted lamb as a woman was splayed across the table, playing dead.
"We think we can never pull it off," Fietsam said, "but it just seems to work."
Crafty location
As more guests wandered in from the desert night, they were greeted with a glass of craft beer, offered by the friends of Fietsam and Horgen who volunteer to pitch in.
Julie Warren and Shara Cabreros knew where they were headed as soon as they saw the directions. The couple, who moved to Palm Springs from Seattle nine years ago, are craft beer connoisseurs and knew the site of one of the area's few breweries.
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