Cinq à sept–your KW social connection

On Thursday nights after work around 5’ish, I often head over to The Bauer Kitchen for a drink with an eclectic and dynamic social group of interesting people.  Cinq à sept (Québécois for “five to seven”) in its KW manifestation, is the brain-child of our very own Hilary Abel of RQ Magazine.  I dug up evidence of the first meetup on RQ, dated Jan 2010, so 5à7 (or CaS, or #cinqasept) is well into its second year of social success.

At #cinqasept, I’ve met: an artist, a doctor, a student, a train conductor, a photographer, a singer, a musician, a real estate agent, a graphic designer, a brand specialist, a software developer, a politician, a yoga instructor, an architect,…  you get the idea.

People usually roll in around 5:30pm and head out by 7:30pm.  It’s never the same crowd twice.  I’ve been there when the crowd was as small as 2 and as big as 20.  I kind of like the uncertainty of it.  No invite required.  Just show up and introduce yourself.

It starts off small early on.  Bryan Izzard, left, with Alex Williams, Ben Brown, and Dave White.  This stand-up bar, right inside the door, is…

reserved for us to mill around, in front of this…

awesome bar, where…

Kim pulls…

beer for us.

Hilary Abel, our fearless leader arrived with the red-shirted Paul McGough of the band Vacuity.

The Bauer Kitchen is a really funky place at a great central location.  This cork wall features corks, adorned by customers, from the bottles of wine consumed here.

Great light in…

here.

Lisa MacDonald of The Sign Depot stopped by for a quick hello.

More chatting…

Through that window lies the brick oven that makes great pizza.

Floor lights: great details abound.

There’s the fast-moving Christian on the right who is another of our favourite servers here.

These are on the bar because…

TBK generously provides complimentary snacks for our crew if we draw a big enough crowd.

Amy Vandenberg (centre) of CuteGecko dropped in, and we then discovered that Paul (left)…

may be an undercover male model, which made us all…

smile.

Second round, seldom more.

Alex wanted a picture of…

these unique lights.

Also in the house was Neal Moogk-Soulis (left), writer and co-conspirator on the amazing Steel Rails event last year (you may recall him in the conductor’s uniform).  Neal’s the Community Relations and Retail Sales Manager for the Waterloo Central Railway.

What is H. trying to tell me here?

Steve Scott, fellow security guy from RIM, chattin’ with H and…

Dave White.

Janette along with Evan Thor were talking to…

Ramy Nassar (left).

And then we peak and go on to our other stuff of the evening.  I’m often asked how do you know if cinq à sept is “on” this week.  I suggest searching the #cinqasept hashtag on twitter and see what the buzz is.  Then make the leap to meet some really cool new people.

Happy making,

DW