Conflicts Between the Evite Invitation and This Page
Sidney's Grille
Read James' essays.
We now have sections for Business, Computers, and Dating & Romance.
See photos from previous parties.
This page is written generically for all of my parties given at Sidney's Grille. If there are any conflicts between the information contained in the Evite invitation I sent to you and this page, the information in the Evite invitation supercedes the information contained in this page.
For both the large and smaller cocktail parties, we ask that people RSVP, even if they are not attending. You can tell that a response is expected because the invitation begins with "RSVP --". If you don't know whether you can attend, please RSVP "Maybe." If you don't respond, you will continue to receive reminders until you do. See our RSVP policy.
Sidney's Grille
20 Sidney Street
Cambridge
(617) 551-0324
www.SidneysGrille.com
Located within
Hotel@MIT (617 577-0200)
If you're taking the MBTA, take the Red line to
the Central Square subway stop. Walk down Massachusetts Avenue
towards MIT (i.e., away from Harvard).
On the south side of Massachusetts Avenue,
walk three blocks to Sidney Street.
Turn right/south and walk one block. Hotel@MIT
is on your left.
Directions to Hotel@MIT
Sidney's Grille
Parking is available at Hotel@MIT. Assuming you have your parking ticket validated by Sidney's Grille, self-park parking is $5 and valet parking is $7. If you use the valet, when you leave, give them your parking ticket at least 20 minutes before you leave, as I have found them to be quite slow in retrieving cars.
As you enter Hotel@MIT, the check-in counter is to your right. Sidney's Grille is to the right of the check-in counter, past the elevators. We'll meet around the bar, which is towards the front of the restaurant.
For the smaller cocktail parties, we ask that people dress up. Cocktail party dress is strongly preferred. Business attire is acceptable if you're coming directly from work. Anything less formal — including business casual — is not acceptable. At a minimum, men should wear jackets and shirts with collars, and we prefer that women wear dresses or skirts. Please see our dress code. If in doubt, err on the side of overdressing slightly. We do drop from the invitation list those who are substantially underdressed. If you have any questions about the dress code, please give me a call at (781) 647-0136, which is good day and night.
If you ask the person who greets you at Sindey's Grille, they will store your coat on an informal basis.
The restrooms are not located within Sidney's Grille. As you enter Hotel@MIT, on your right is the check-in desk. To the right of the check-in desk, before Sidney's Grille, are the restrooms.
You can order food at Sidney's Grille.
Cash or credit cards are accepted at Sidney's Grille.
Since the parties I give at Sidney's Grille tend to be on the smaller side, nametags and descriptive tags are not used.
We encourage you to bring several guests to the party, preferably the most interesting people you know. One girl brought nine friends to one of the parties. The most appropriate guests are those who would be eligible to join as members. Please inform your guests of the dress code. The kind of people we're looking for is explained here, and our expectations of our members are described here. If you have doubts about whether you should bring a particular person, we've learned the hard way that it's best to err on the side of caution and to not bring them, as our experience has been that when members have doubts about a particular guest, such doubts are well-founded. Our invitation list is already quite large and is growing at an increasing rate, so it's more important to focus on keeping the quality of the invitation list high than adding even more people. If you have any questions about what we look for in guests, please give James a call at (781) 647-0136, which is good day and night.
If you know ahead of time that you're going to invite someone, we strongly encourage you to e-mail James their name and e-mail address. That way, we can add them to the general invitation list and we'll print a nametag for them. If you don't know, you're free to just bring them to the party.
Dining Room
Please bring numerous business cards with you in case you meet people you want to follow up with. After every party, I receive several e-mails from people, saying that someone they met at the party wrote down their contact information and they can't read their handwriting. Wouldn't it be easier if the other person just handed them a business card? If you don't have business cards, Professional Taste Printing will print 1000 business cards for as low as $35.
The parties I give at Sidney's Grille are on the smaller side, and thus we do not have facilitators.
During the party, you can reach me on my mobile phone (781 718-1301). Except when you know for certain that I am out (i.e., I'm hosting a party), the best number to reach me is (781) 647-0136, which is good day and night. When I'm out, I transfer the 647-0136 number to my mobile phone.
If you have not already done so, please create an Evite account. This will allow you to view all of your Evite invitations — whether sent by me or someone else — in one place. If you delete an Evite invitation sent to you, you can log into Evite and it will be there. It costs nothing to create an Evite account.
Some anti-spam programs incorrectly identify the invitations I send to me as spam (a false positive). In your e-mail package, please add jmitchell@kensingtonllc.com and info@evite.com to your white or approved list. Your company's technical support department should be able to show you how to do this.
If you're busy and wish to not receive invitations for a certain period of time, you can suspend your membership for X months or X years. Simply write to James and tell him what X is.
If you wish to no longer receive invitations for any parties going forward (as opposed to suspending your membership), simply write to James. Before you do, please read this page and this page.