Episode Details

This week on Five Rules for the Good Life, I’m joined by Sue Chan, founder of Care of Chan and C/O/C Projects. In this episode, she shares her Five Rules for Hosting with Heart, covering everything from curating an intimate guest list to setting an intentional tone to the importance of toasting guests. We talk about what it takes to make gatherings meaningful, memorable, and grounded in personal connection.

Talking with Sue brought me right back to planning our wedding with my wife, Anna. I remember the hours we spent debating the decor, the lighting, and how to make the ceremony feel like us. That experience taught me how powerful personal details can be in shaping a moment, and that same lesson echoed throughout this conversation. Storytelling has always been at the center of what I do, whether I’m building a show, producing an event, or just hosting dinner. Sue’s perspective reminded me that when you lead with heart and clarity, the people you gather can feel it.

Photo by Matthew Glueckert

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Transcription

Hello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I'm your host, Darin Bresnitz.

Today I sit down with my friend and colleague, Sue Chan, founder of Care of Chan, COC Projects, and a staple of the New York and LA restaurant scenes. She shares her five rules on how to host with heart. We chat about her lifetime dedicated to hosting, how storytelling is key to making any event a moment, and how gathering guests for a few words can make a night memorable.

So let's get into the rules.

Sue, always a pleasure to see your smiling face coast to coast. Thank you for taking the time and sitting down with me on the show.

You and I have worked together in the past and talked a lot about our approach to hosting and hospitality. What I love about your approach is that it's been a part of your life almost your entire life. I remember the story you told me where you threw your first dinner party in second grade.

Yes, it was for my birthday party when I turned eight years old.

What has drawn you to hosting and throwing parties?

I moved around a lot as a kid because my parents were academics. I pretty much moved every four years when I was younger. Because of that, I had to make friends in every single new school that I went to. So building community has just always been something really important to me, and something that I got a few reps in throughout my life.

Some of those reps were working in the restaurant industry. You've worked at some of the most high-end restaurants in New York, and you're friends with a lot of chefs. What from that world have you incorporated both into your personal life and your professional life, especially with hospitality and hosting?

I always take a hospitality-first approach to the events that we plan. It's not just about having a beautiful tablescape or having a delicious grazing platter. It's about what are the extra touches that you add to everything to make it feel super personal. Those details really make the difference between a good event and a great event.

What I’ve always loved about Care of Chan, your agency, is that in addition to those details, storytelling is a big part of what you do. Why is that so important to you and to throwing a good event?

Whenever we plan events, it's really important for us to identify what story we're trying to tell. That story can be something as simple as a theme, or it can be something as complicated as, “I want guests to walk away with this feeling.” From there, when you decide the food or the tablescape, it levels up into that stor