About Us
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Good People Dinners is an event company and community started in 2012 by Raman Frey. In 2018 Karin Johnson joined the team and they were married in 2020. Our events are built around meaningful conversations and chef-prepared farm-to-table feasts.
Karin and Raman have produced over 1,100 dinners, overnights, and retreats, with a wide range of speakers on a diversity of topics. They are based out of the San Francisco Bay Area and Camp Earnest near Yosemite National Park, Some GP Dinners events are ticketed and open to our community, but most are sponsored by curiosity-driven and impact-oriented companies, non-profits, university groups and organizations. |
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Our Story
Good People Dinners began when Raman chose to leave the art world. He felt dissatisfied by days filled with transactional conversations. So he started organizing dinners in friends’ homes, returning to what he cared about most: food, community building and meaningful conversations.
Word spread, and more and more people wanted to come enjoy the experience. Eventually, the path forward was clear: Good People Dinners needed room to grow and could offer unique experiences with a focus on genuine human connection, discovery and exploration of ideas. To date, we have welcomed over ten thousand guests at gatherings around the world.
Word spread, and more and more people wanted to come enjoy the experience. Eventually, the path forward was clear: Good People Dinners needed room to grow and could offer unique experiences with a focus on genuine human connection, discovery and exploration of ideas. To date, we have welcomed over ten thousand guests at gatherings around the world.
Our Founding Principles
Refuge A fulfilling human life is balanced between time spent problem solving, focused on goals, and time spent exploring and discovering. Good People is a refuge from our relentless pursuit of our own ambitions. We come together to wander across the landscape of ideas with no destination, a love for novelty, the joys of unexpected learning.
Connection Community and friendship are vital human needs. Most modern cultures do a poor job meeting those needs. Good People builds connection between strangers through vulnerable and sincere conversations about a wide range of important and timely ideas.
You Be You What you may own or what you may have achieved isn’t most important to us. We do our best to leave condescension and hierarchies at the door. We are interested in the contents of your character, in the opinions you carry and in sharing them in a spirit of civility. All kinds of people from all walks of life, all ages, all ethnicities, sexual and gender identities, political and religious ideologies are welcome at our table.
Curiosity We ask that you temporarily put down the things you are most ardently pursuing. Through curiosity, we build trust and rapport. Do your best to let go of your agenda, listen and offer what you sincerely think and feel. Whatever you want most, from a romance to an investor or donor, to hiring or getting hired, is not why we’re here. You can pick that up again tomorrow.
Civil Discourse Our community is built on inquiry. Civil discourse across real differences is vital to a thriving civilization. Our societies will remain resilient and peaceful only if we can find ways to break bread and disagree with friends across the table. Community does not require us all to hold identical views or even reconcile our differences of opinion. At our gatherings we express strong opinions lightly held and our tone is one of respect.
Freedom of Expression Feel free to express your thoughts and understanding. What is shared at our gatherings will be kept in confidence. Nothing revealed here may be broadcast for the general public, at least not without explicit permission from the person who opened up.
Food and Drink All people eat. Amazing feasts are a timeless way to connect with those we don’t know, to move people quickly from strangers to friends. Food and drink can connect us in ways few other shared activities can. We give our chefs a lot of creative freedom, but ask them to accommodate your dietary needs. Most of them work with small, local and organic producers whenever possible. This results in family style meals, innovative seasonal menus that express an evolving mixture of culinary traditions.
Welcome Home Our philosophy of hospitality breaks with conventions; we are not a restaurant, hotel, cafe or social club as you’ve known these things. We don’t have waiters. Our host pours drinks. We all help a little with passing around food at meals and with tidying up. At our GP gatherings, please help yourself and be at home, as you would with family or close friends.
Connection Community and friendship are vital human needs. Most modern cultures do a poor job meeting those needs. Good People builds connection between strangers through vulnerable and sincere conversations about a wide range of important and timely ideas.
You Be You What you may own or what you may have achieved isn’t most important to us. We do our best to leave condescension and hierarchies at the door. We are interested in the contents of your character, in the opinions you carry and in sharing them in a spirit of civility. All kinds of people from all walks of life, all ages, all ethnicities, sexual and gender identities, political and religious ideologies are welcome at our table.
Curiosity We ask that you temporarily put down the things you are most ardently pursuing. Through curiosity, we build trust and rapport. Do your best to let go of your agenda, listen and offer what you sincerely think and feel. Whatever you want most, from a romance to an investor or donor, to hiring or getting hired, is not why we’re here. You can pick that up again tomorrow.
Civil Discourse Our community is built on inquiry. Civil discourse across real differences is vital to a thriving civilization. Our societies will remain resilient and peaceful only if we can find ways to break bread and disagree with friends across the table. Community does not require us all to hold identical views or even reconcile our differences of opinion. At our gatherings we express strong opinions lightly held and our tone is one of respect.
Freedom of Expression Feel free to express your thoughts and understanding. What is shared at our gatherings will be kept in confidence. Nothing revealed here may be broadcast for the general public, at least not without explicit permission from the person who opened up.
Food and Drink All people eat. Amazing feasts are a timeless way to connect with those we don’t know, to move people quickly from strangers to friends. Food and drink can connect us in ways few other shared activities can. We give our chefs a lot of creative freedom, but ask them to accommodate your dietary needs. Most of them work with small, local and organic producers whenever possible. This results in family style meals, innovative seasonal menus that express an evolving mixture of culinary traditions.
Welcome Home Our philosophy of hospitality breaks with conventions; we are not a restaurant, hotel, cafe or social club as you’ve known these things. We don’t have waiters. Our host pours drinks. We all help a little with passing around food at meals and with tidying up. At our GP gatherings, please help yourself and be at home, as you would with family or close friends.