Editorโs note: Find more tips for savoring the season in the full feature story.
As the saying goes, you are born into your family, but you get to pick your friends. So, why not spend the holidays with your best friends?
This was the rationale behind a group of girlfriendsโ weekly Thursday dinners, which have grown to include a grand yearly Friendsgiving, complete with color-coordinated outfits, a gift exchange, and holiday games in a reserved room at a restaurant they select together.
โI wanted to do something to fight isolation,โ Kari Akin, one of the founding members of the group, explains. โWe share a commonality: Our parents are similar in age, weโre dealing with the same things.โ
The seed was planted in October 2019, when Akin, Mary Elizabeth Small, Gretchen Ross, and Heather Howery-King joined Evansville Livingโs Best of Evansville party. The quartet frequently attended charity and community events and had dinner together.
On March 20, 2020, Small and Akin toasted Rossโ birthday with cocktails at the former Amyโs on Franklin. As the COVID-19 pandemic was ripping the rug out from under everyday life, โI wondered if Iโd ever get to join my friends for a cock- tail inside ever again,โ Akin says.
She, Small, Ross, and Howery-King began regularly dining together on restaurant patios in June. By August, they were inviting others and set up a private Facebook group to coordinate their meals and events. Ever since the group โ which has grown to around 15 women โ dines together nearly every single Thursday.
The group is committed to supporting small businesses by dining at local, unique restaurants in Evansville, Newburgh, Indiana, and Henderson, Kentucky.
The girls do more than dine out: They have vacationed in Chicago and Las Vegas, created vision boards for the new year, and supported each other at weddings and funerals. Surveying dinner menus, they often borrow each otherโs reading glasses.
โWe have a sister bond,โ says Diana Cherry, another regular.
Marida, the new Mediterranean restaurant in Newburgh, will host the groupโs fifth annual Friendsgiving in December.
Family and other friends are invited along to other outings, but Thursday dinners have a sacred place among this group.
Says Akin, โThursdays are for the girls.โ
