Research Lunch Club in New York City
New York runs on a thousand conversations a day, and somehow it's still easy to never meet the researchers two blocks over. Research Lunch Club matches you into a small group of NYC researchers for lunch, once a month. No mixers, no badges — just three people who do the work, sharing a table for an hour.
📍 Real researchers, real lunch
Who's in the New York City group
Our New York members include researchers from Columbia, NYU and CUNY, teams at Google, Meta and Bloomberg, and institutes like the Flatiron Institute and Memorial Sloan Kettering. Data scientists, UX researchers, computational biologists, social scientists — the kind of cross-disciplinary table you only get in a city this dense.
Researchers from across New York City
A sense of where New York City members spend their days — the universities, institutes and companies they come from.
Where New York City members meet
NYC groups meet where research and industry overlap: Morningside Heights near Columbia, Greenwich Village and Washington Square for NYU, Flatiron and SoHo for the tech and data crowd, and Midtown East near Bloomberg and the hospitals. Your group picks a lunch spot in whichever neighbourhood splits the commute — a deli, a counter, a quiet table.
Third-wave coffee, New York City-style
Lunch has a way of running into coffee. A few independent, third-wave spots New York City researchers gravitate to — chains need not apply.
Devoción
Flatiron
La Cabra
NoHo
Variety Coffee Roasters
Midtown
🍝 Three researchers, one table
How Research Lunch Club works in New York City
You get matched
Every month we pair you with two other researchers in New York City — deliberately across disciplines and career stages, so the conversation goes somewhere new.
Your group picks a day & a spot
You sort the time and place together in the member app — a lunch that works for all three of you, somewhere easy in the city.
You meet for lunch
Show up, swap notes, and build the kind of relationship that outlasts a conference badge. Most New York City groups keep in touch long after.
Your first lunch is on us
Snap a photo at the table and tag us on LinkedIn or Instagram — we'll cover your first lunch. Our way of saying welcome.
Pricing & the 90-day guarantee
The cost of a coffee
£5 a quarter, and you can cancel anytime. The lunch itself you pay for at the table.
A fresh match monthly
Two new New York City researchers every month you're a member.
90-day guarantee
Not feeling the lunches in your first 90 days? We'll refund your membership.
First lunch on us
Tag us in a photo from your first lunch and we'll cover it.
☕ Lunch that ran into coffee
New York City researcher FAQ
Wherever's easiest for your group — often Morningside Heights, the Village, Flatiron, SoHo or Midtown, close to where members work. You sort the day and the place together in the app.
Other NYC-based researchers across disciplines and seniority — Columbia, NYU and CUNY academics alongside data and UX researchers at Google, Meta, Bloomberg and labs like Flatiron and MSK. Deliberately mixed, never the same field twice if we can help it.
Each month we group NYC members into threes, mixing fields and career stages and avoiding repeat pairings. A fresh group lands every month you're a member.
Absolutely. A lot of New York members are industry researchers — UX, data, quant and applied science at tech and finance firms across the city. If research is your work, you fit right in.
About the price of a coffee a quarter — £5, cancel anytime. You cover your own lunch at the table, and the first one's on us.
More on meeting other researchers
Join researchers in New York City
The cost of a coffee a quarter. Cancel anytime. Your first lunch is on us.