A dining club or eating club is a social group, usually requiring membership, which meets for dinners and discussion on a regular basis. They may also often have guest speakers.
United Kingdom
A dining club differs from a gentlemen's club in that it does not have permanent premises, often changing the location of its meetings and dinners. Clubs may limit their membership to those who meet highly specific membership requirements, for example the Coningsby Club requires that one was a member of either OUCA or CUCA, the Conservative Associations at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge respectively. Others may require applicants to pass an interview, or simply pay a membership fee. Early dining clubs include The Pitt Club and The Bullingdon Club.
In the United States, similar clubs that limit membership to students of a particular university are referred to as eating clubs. Replaced largely by the modern fraternity and sorority system in the United States, eating clubs are now limited to a few colleges and universities, most notably Princeton University. An eating club is a social club found in American universities. Eating clubs date to the late 19th and early 20th centuries and are intended to allow college students to enjoy meals and pleasant discourse. Some clubs are referred to as bicker clubs because of the process of bickering over which applicants to accept as members. Replaced largely by the modern fraternity and sorority system, eating clubs are now limited to a few colleges and universities, most notably Princeton University, Stanford University, Davidson College, Mount Olive College, and Reed College. Dining clubs often have reciprocity with other dining clubs across the nation or even worldwide. Some are able to arrange reciprocity with other private social clubs with more facilities besides dining such as overnight guest rooms and a gym. Examples of such social clubs include Penn Club of New York City that has reciprocity with India House Club at 1 Hanover Square.
The Thursday Club, a monthly dining club, features in the novelThe Three Hostages by John Buchan.
The Twelve True Fishermen is the name of a fictional club in the eponymous short story by G. K. Chesterton in which his detective Father Brown solves the riddle of the disappearance of the club's silver.
