Of course, depending on local regulations, these supper clubs may be illegal. To assuage diners worried about food safety, the Feastly site says hosts "opt in" to its guidelines. But that doesn't mean supper clubs are above health authorities — one in New Jersey was shut down last year because it didn't have a license.

Harris and his partner, Noah Karesh, launched Feastly in early 2012 in Washington, D.C., and recently opened up to chefs in New York. Next month, it launches in San Francisco.

Gusta, another site, operates under a similar premise, and has built a network of 287 chefs in dozens of cities from Berlin to Portland, Ore., to Charleston, S.C. Co-founder Carly Chamberlain, a former employee of Airbnb, told Food+Tech Connect in 2011 that it has a more international focus than other sites and can handle multiple currencies.

A newcomer to the supper club business is Kitchen.ly, which, like Feastly and Gusta, provides a space online for chefs to list events and diners to sign up for them. But don't expect to find much on there yet: It held its inaugural dinner in founder Mitch Monsen's kitchen in Ogden, Utah on Friday. Kitchen.ly could turn out to be slightly more affordable than the others — the site claims that the only charges to organize an event are processing fees of 2.9 percent plus 30 cents.

For chefs and diners who prefer to organize dinner events on their phones for free, there's an app for that, and it's called Supper King. A recent search turned up only two events – one in Oakland, Ca. and another in Hamburg, Germany. As with all of the services, the trick will be to find enough users to keep people coming back.

Harris of Feastly believes they will.

"There are all of these people out there who want to open a restaurant or food truck but don't have the money to do it, or they have a day job and make incredible vegan food and want to share it," says Harris. "They just need a platform to monetize their passion, and we believe we'll succeed with that."

Still, a comparison to Airbnb might be a stretch. Feastly says their events, on average, cost about the same as the average restaurant meal ($35), while Airbnb has managed to undercut the hotel industry by offering far cheaper rates per night.

Copyright 2013 National Public Radio.

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Matching Diners To Chefs, Startups Hatch Underground Supper Clubs