5280 Table Event Didn't Quite Make the Mile-Marker

Tim Jones is a visionary. Or maybe he's a madman. He's the founder of Longer Tables, an organization that for a decade has planned free community meals — initially presented as potlucks but now catered events — that bring together strangers to eat together and build a sense of community.

They started as small local events — one in Arvada two years ago brought together 150 people, and most of them contributed a dish to share that was distributed from a communal serving table. But last year's event fed 528 diners at Civic Center Park. And on Saturday, July 26, the mass meal's goal upped the ante by a significant number, hoping to feed 5,280 people with a Mile Long Table.

The meal didn't quite make the numbers, with some empty spots at the long tables snaking throughout the Auraria campus. "But still, it was a fantastic showing," Jones says. "It was a diverse cross-section of humans."

Jones considers the event a "huge success," even if the turnout is estimated at 3,400 rather than 5,280 people. "The former head of the Peace Corps was at the table," he says. "And she wants to bring it to D.C., you know, to do a table on the mall."

Several cities across the country have already contacted him for help to set tables, he adds. And his organization is also piloting a program with Jefferson County Public Health to host Longer Table meals in schools for youth leaders this fall. Jones himself will be in Madison, Wisconsin, next week setting up a Longer Table event.

Before the event, because of pre-registration to plan the amount of food needed, the attendance was capped at 3,700. "And then we probably had two to three hundred attrition, which we anticipated," Jones says. Both last year and this year, the food was provided by Serendipity Catering.

For these events, Longer Tables recruits "table hosts," who then invite ten people to attend. But once at the meal, the group is separated to force everyone to interact with strangers instead of their friends and family. The number-one rule: Talking about work is not permitted. Each table host is given icebreakers and a list of questions to ask, like "who are you?" (without talking about your work, that can be a challenge for folks) or "what's a significant thing that happened to you while at a table?" With thousands of people on hand, the intimacy of table hosts shepherding conversations within a small group is almost magical, as people in small clusters chat away with each other while they eat.
To further encourage conversation, Jones booked Latino entertainment from mariachi musicians to Azteca dancers to make sure the diners understood that the land where the Auraria campus was built in the 1970s had originally been Indigenous land, and by the 1960s was home to a robust Latino population — almost all of which was pushed off the land  by urban renewal, with few historic buildings remaining (St. Cajetan's Church, a row of houses and Emmanuel Chapel, as well as the historic Tivoli Brewery).

Although the project is expanding outside of Colorado, Jones and his organization aren't done with Denver yet. He says that Longer Tables will host another Mile Long Table on August 1, 2026, the 150th anniversary of the founding of the state. He's still considering locations, and would like to talk to the Downtown Denver Partnership about 16th Street; years ago, he had wanted to have a mile-long table along Colfax Avenue, but that may be too disruptive. Longer Table is planning a series of smaller meals across the state for the Colorado anniversary, too.
In the meantime, there will be another opportunity to dine with thousands of your closest friends in just a couple of months: Jones is partnering with the Hispanic Restaurant Association to host The Littleton Longer Table on Main Street in downtown Littleton on September 24.

"We're just getting started," he says. "This was the launch. We anticipated not filling the table this year to make sure we figured out our systems. It's tricky to deliver food to a table that stretches a mile long."

Learn more at longertables.org; people can register for the Littleton Longer Table event as either a table host, a diner or volunteer at longertableslittleton.com