Last week I had the pleasure of being invited to the monthly gathering of the Advertising Tennis League (ATL).

Founded by industry vets Jef Eckart, Julien Sautot, and Charlotte Cochrane, ATL brings together a healthy mix of buyers and sellers to mingle, work up a sweat, and whack a few balls into the net (some more than others, myself very much included).

It was such a refreshing way to reconnect and meet new people in our industry and gave me a renewed sense of optimism for gatherings like this.

On that note, you can sign up here for info on upcoming ATL events. You can also join me, the first lady of MeetWell, and some fellow media comrades for a drink at Father’s Office in Culver next Wednesday 10/28 (RSVP here). 

This week on MeetWell, we're exploring some higher-budget options if you have a bigger partnership to celebrate or a more senior client you’re hoping to take out.

— Robbie

The Porsche Experience Center Los Angeles in Carson is a private driving experience built around a 53-acre driver development track.

The standard 90-minute drive puts you in a 911 alongside a second Porsche, from the electric Taycan to an off-road Cayenne, depending on group size.

There are also 4-hour programs for groups up to 50 that combine track driving, off-roading in a Cayenne, and either a cone course or virtual racing in the Simulator Lab. If you'd rather not drive, you can ride shotgun while a Porsche Drive Coach takes you around the handling circuit.

If you're attending around lunchtime, Restaurant 917 overlooks the track and is the natural spot to meet up. Eater profiled it a while back and gave the food a much better review than you might expect inside a Porsche driving center. Note that it's not open for dinner.

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Added value: One seller told me their client flew down from Seattle to do this. It's on the higher end of the client-entertaining budget, but it's also the kind of thing most people aren't doing on their own dime. The one logistical wrinkle to navigate is the timing. Since drive sessions start at 9:30 AM, 12:30 PM, and 3:00 PM, this is more of a Saturday plan or a carve-out-the-afternoon experience than an easy after-work option.

Seline is an award-winning tasting-menu restaurant on Main Street in Santa Monica. The chef, Dave Beran, who also runs Pasjoli, his French bistro down the block, just won the 2026 James Beard Award for Best Chef in California.

The tasting menu works its way through 14–17 courses, usually paired with a cute little spiel about how each one came to be.

Seline was featured as one of The Infatuation's Best New Restaurants of 2025 and caught my eye as one of the more interesting options for a foodie experience that leans into creative, quality food rather than esoteric molecular gastronomy swings like a fig leaf with essence of chrysanthemum.

They recommend two and a half hours for the standard tasting menu and three and a half for the extended menu, so pack your conversation-topic war chest and settle in for a feast.

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Added value: I haven't been to Seline yet, but I took my dad to Beran's other restaurant, Pasjoli, for his birthday a few years ago, and it was outstanding. My dad is English, obsessed with French food, and hard to impress. Being effusively positive about something goes against the very fiber of his being. He came away impressed, which is about as strong an endorsement as we're going to get, so I'm very curious to see what Beran does with a full tasting menu.

The Smashing Pumpkins are coming to the Kia Forum on Thursday, November 12, for the sweetly named Rats in a Cage Tour. They'll be playing two sets, one celebrating their iconic Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness album, and another with jams from across their career.

This is a fun trip down memory lane for your Gen X/millennial clients who grew up on alternative rock, or your younger clients who got in on the '90s TikTok trends and need a good reason to trot out their JNCO jeans and Doc Martens.

I spoke with Lucy Hanson, who handles group sales across the Clippers, Kia Forum, and Intuit Dome. She put together a few box seat options for this show. Her details are below.

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Added value: Like many a '90s kid, the Smashing Pumpkins were a big part of my angsty teenage years. I honestly didn't really like their music initially and thought it was too grungy. But to fit in with the cool kids, I forced myself to listen to the Mellon Collie album over and over until I came to love it. I suspect there are plenty of clients who'd enjoy reliving some of their angsty teenage years.

Ever been hanging with a client and conversation just runs dry? Whether it’s recent and topical, or general and evergreen, the Oasis is about giving you one idea for helping in that moment.

Parental Social Media Addiction

We're all addicted to technology in one form or another, and I don't think most of us would deny it. But you know who would deny it? Some of our parents!

During the pandemic, I was hanging out with my dad and he asked me what's with all the hype about TikTok. I told him it'd be easier to show him than to explain it, so we downloaded it on his phone and let him scroll through a few videos, which he put down quickly, underwhelmed. A week later, my mom called and asked what the hell I'd done since my dad was now more glued to his phone than ever.

We approached him about it and he was adamant that he was not in fact addicted and could easily delete the app, which he then did in front of us (was a little bitchy about it too!). However, he has since relapsed and we caught him using again! Apparently English football highlight clips were too good to miss.

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