Research Lunch Club in San Francisco Bay Area
The Bay Area has more researchers per square mile than almost anywhere — and a calendar so full it's hard to just have lunch with peers. Research Lunch Club matches you into a small group of Bay Area researchers for lunch, once a month. No demo, no pitch — a real conversation with people working on hard problems, for the cost of a coffee a quarter.
📍 Real researchers, real lunch
Who's in the San Francisco Bay Area group
Our Bay Area members include researchers from Stanford, UC Berkeley and UCSF, teams at Google, Apple, Meta and OpenAI, and institutes like SLAC and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. ML researchers, HCI and UX folks, neuroscientists, bioengineers — the full sweep of what the region builds.
Researchers from across San Francisco Bay Area
A sense of where San Francisco Bay Area members spend their days — the universities, institutes and companies they come from.
Where San Francisco Bay Area members meet
Bay Area groups meet across the map: SoMa and the Mission in the city, the Stanford / Palo Alto corridor down the Peninsula, Downtown Berkeley near campus, and Mountain View / Sunnyvale for the South Bay. Your group picks a lunch spot near whoever's closest — we keep matches geographically sane so nobody's driving an hour for a sandwich.
Third-wave coffee, San Francisco Bay Area-style
Lunch has a way of running into coffee. A few independent, third-wave spots San Francisco Bay Area researchers gravitate to — chains need not apply.
Sightglass Coffee
SoMa
Ritual Coffee Roasters
the Mission
Verve Coffee
Palo Alto
🍝 Three researchers, one table
How Research Lunch Club works in San Francisco Bay Area
You get matched
Every month we pair you with two other researchers in San Francisco Bay Area — 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 San Francisco Bay Area 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 San Francisco Bay Area 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
San Francisco Bay Area researcher FAQ
Close to your group — often SoMa, the Mission, the Stanford/Palo Alto corridor, Berkeley or the South Bay. We try to match people who can realistically share a lunch, and your group picks the exact spot in the app.
Other Bay Area researchers across fields and seniority — Stanford, Berkeley and UCSF academics alongside ML, HCI and UX researchers at Google, Apple, Meta, OpenAI and biotech labs. Deliberately cross-disciplinary.
Each month we sort members into threes by city and rough geography, mixing disciplines and career stages and avoiding repeat pairings. A new group every month.
Definitely — the Bay Area skews industry, and many members are UX, ML and applied researchers at tech firms and startups. If you do research, you belong here.
Around the price of a coffee a quarter — £5, cancel anytime. Lunch is on you at the table; your first one is on us.
More on meeting other researchers
Join researchers in San Francisco Bay Area
The cost of a coffee a quarter. Cancel anytime. Your first lunch is on us.