Here's the scoop on this 'dating' service. I was a member for a little over 12 months (the length…read moreof the contract) a couple years back. Keep in mind that they could have updated the way things work since I was a member, but I doubt it. The cost is around $1400-1600 depending on the 'special' they have running at the time. That price might cover 12-14 months, again, depending on the special.
Table for Six is a service where they pair 3 women and 3 men for an evening dinner out. You are seated at an age-appropriate table. That means the 20 somethings sit together. The 35-40s somethings sit together and the senior age group sits together. They don't generally pair people who are overly age inappropriate. For example, I was always seated in the 35-40 somethings group and never sat at the 'older' or 'younger' tables.
You visit the web site weekly and set up your availability. If there's a table for you, they'll call you and tell you where and when. If not, you wait until the next week. As a guy, if you set up availability in the south bay, peninsula or SF, you're likely to get a table every time since there seemed to be fewer active men than women.
The restaurants are priced anywhere from $$$, like California Cafe to $$$$, like Trader Vic's. That means, you're likely to drop anywhere between $25 and $50 on your meal. The only food item that is included as part of your 'meal' by T46 is a single glass of wine. You are responsible for the rest of food and tips for your own meal and each person pays their own check. The restaurants they use are generally limited and more upscale. Because T46 has a hard time getting restaurants to agree to how they work, they are limited to but a handful of places you are likely to visit over and over. So, in addition to the $1400 you have dropped for the membership, you're still going to drop $25-50 for each meal.
With all that said, the 'dating' part of this is extremely loose and left up to you. If you find someone you like, it's up to you to take it further. But, don't go into T46 assuming you're going to find someone. Just take it one dinner at a time. If you don't go into this service with a lot of preset expectations, you'll have a lot more fun even if you don't find someone. If you go in assuming you're going to be perfectly age matched and find people with the same interests, you're going to be disappointed with this service. Instead, go in with no assumptions and you'll have a lot better time. At the same time, don't go into this service and only do one dinner a month. That's just a waste of membership money. You need to be a whole lot more active than that.
T46 also offers other outings less frequently such as whitewater rafting and BBQ get togethers, but these are less about dating and more about mixing whole groups of ages of people together (including the T46 staff). These outings can be costly, like the whitewater rafting excursion. But, everyone I talked to who attended the excursion said it was tremendously fun.
I personally felt the Table for Six service was pricey, especially for what you are getting out of the deal (e.g. setting you up with dinners that you still have to pay for). So, what you're paying for is primarily getting seated for dinner with 5 other people. Sometimes you have nice conversation and other times you have weird conversations. But, I never got the idea that T46 was really there to help find me a match. After my contract expired, I didn't renew and I also didn't get hounded about renewals either (which I've heard they do a 'hard sell' to get people to renew). While the dinners were mostly nice, I just wasn't getting anything out of it that I couldn't do on my own. That, and I was just tired of dropping $45 each time I did a table.
I'm giving this service 3 stars because they at least provided a decent job of pairing up people for the dinners, but the duplication of restaurants and the expense of the dinners wore thin. If you go into Table for Six just looking to eat out once or twice a week without any other expectations, then it might be worth it. Just be careful about empty 'matching' promises and their hard upsells once you get into their office.
Note, early in the lifespan of Table for Six they once sold lifetime memberships. While they no longer sell these memberships, there are still a number of people in the bay area who have them and occasionally use them. So, if you do enough tables, expect to be paired at a table with a lifetime member at some point. What I've generally found with these folks is that they're just in it for a night out with no real intent of looking for anyone. In fact, I think that they may use some of these membership holders as 'standby' when they can't actually make 6 at a table.
