A dinner table inside a small Brooklyn apartment is becoming one of New York City’s most talked-about social experiences. What started as a personal experiment after a layoff has now turned into a massive community-driven supper club with more than 10,000 people waiting for a seat.
The buzz around the concept recently grew after Hyderabad-based influencer Deepika Reddy shared a video about Nirupa Konejetti and her now-viral dinner gatherings.
In the clip, Reddy said, “10,000 strangers are waiting to have dinner with a girl from Hyderabad? Not at a restaurant, a Brooklyn apartment, 18 people dining at a time. The girl in question is Nirupa Konejetti. So Nirupa got laid off in 2023 and instead of looking out for another corporate job, she started hosting dinners in her New York City apartment called the Bazaar Supper Club.
“It started small and now there is a 10,000 plus people waitlist for dinner in someone’s apartment? Because this is not just about food. People are showing up for connection, for deep conversation and people are willing to wait for it.”
According to Konejetti’s Instagram bio, she describes herself simply by saying, “I turn my NYC apartment into a supper club Dinner parties.”
One of her recent events took place on May 2, when she hosted a 16-person communal dinner table inside her apartment. Sharing details about the evening on Instagram, Konejetti wrote, “Spring dinner party is here and i’m going back to my apartment for this one.”
She explained that the menu focused heavily on seasonal ingredients. “This menu is fully led by what’s in season right now think wild ramps (aka green garlic), rhubarb, sugar snap peas, all the bright, punchy flavors.”
The dinner ticket was priced at $150, and guests were selected carefully through an application process. Konejetti added, “i read every response and build the table intentionally this dinner is as much about the people as it is about the food.”
The menu itself mixed flavors and dishes from different cultures. Guests were served Malaysian curry puffs, garlic confit focaccia, burrata chaat, smoked tomato chutney over labneh, chili crunch tteokbokki cucumber salad, Taiwanese popcorn chicken, charred carrots over date tahini, and a strawberry rhubarb pavlova dessert.
Konejetti is the founder of Bazaar Supper Club and Bazaar Butter, a monthly dining experience hosted from her Brooklyn apartment where around 18 guests gather for family-style meals and long conversations. But the idea behind the dinners came from a deeply personal turning point in her life.
Speaking to West & East, Konejetti said getting laid off in 2023 changed how she looked at life and community.
“As an immigrant, that realization hit differently. When you build a life far away from home, you place a lot of meaning on the people around you. You want that sense of chosen family. You want a village. What I learned was that a village isn’t something you just find. It’s something you build. And if you want a village, you have to be a villager,” she said.
She revealed that throughout 2023, she experimented quietly with hosting concepts through platforms like Airbnb Experiences and Dinner With Friends.
“So all of 2023, I was hosting test concepts through platforms like Airbnb Experiences, Dinner with Friends and I never had any social presence the entire time,” she added.
Things began changing in 2024 when she decided to publicly build the brand and create an online identity around the dinners.
“But 2024 came by, and that was when I thought, you know what, I need to put my face and a name to this. I went word searching for a bit. For some reason, I had the word ‘Bazaar’ somewhere in my head. A bazaar is a spice market. We use this word a lot in India. There’s always someone saying,
‘Oh, I’m going to the bazaar to pick up stuff.’ And so, I said, let’s go with that.”
She created an Instagram page in February 2024, but growth was initially slow.
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“I created my first Instagram page in February 2024, and it had zero followers for a very long time. I was mostly taking pictures of scenes from the dinner table and of people at the dinner. I did that for a couple of months, and the page was very stagnant.”
The real breakthrough came in 2025 after she posted a raw and emotional video during what she described as a difficult day.
“But, enter 2025. April 2025 was when I made a scrappy video while I was having a really bad day (it was a bad anxiety attack), and I was trying everything to take my mind off of it….and just hit post on the video.”
She explained that the video showed her transforming her apartment into a restaurant for strangers while trying to rediscover herself outside a traditional corporate career.
“This reel was me explaining what happens when I convert my apartment into a restaurant. I invite 18 strangers in, cook all this food, and do it because I want to find out who I am outside of my nine-to-five. And that this is me challenging myself to build a life.”
The response was immediate and overwhelming.
“There was a lot of audience resonance. And I’ve gotten hundreds of messages from people across the entire world saying, ‘This is me right now. I’m glad you’re taking this risk, and I want to do it too.’”
Konejetti said the viral moment changed everything overnight.
“This was my first video that went viral. I was very lucky, and it doesn’t happen to everyone. I’m very thankful. To me, that was the explosive overnight growth. I had maybe 2,000 followers, and the next morning I woke up to 10,000. It was crazy.”