Sonoma goes white at annual pop-up event

This year marks the fifth anniversary of an unusual event in Sonoma. On Saturday afternoon, some 600 people checked their email to figure out where they were having dinner that evening. Instructions in hand, they put on a white outfit, grabbed table decor and put the finishing touches on an elaborate picnic meal and headed out the door.

The 2018 secret location for the Pop-Up Dinner Wine Country was the ruins in Jack London State Historic Park.

Founder and Sonoma Valley resident Nicole Benjamin, co-owner of Hand Made Events, has described the event as “more pop-up art installation than pop-up dinner.”

She and her husband Garrett Sathre have made a business out of organizing these pop-up events around the country. More than 1,500 people bought tickets to participate in their Aug. 25 pop-up dinner in New York City; last October, 3,000 guests joined in the fun in San Francisco.

In Sonoma on Saturday night, a (mostly) young crowd of hundreds walked the ruins admiring each others’ outfits, tables and meals and danced to a DJ under the stars until 10 p.m.