Olivia Shao and Jay Sanders have a very unique space called Doyers in lower Manhattan. Their place is a small room in a sub-basement in a building on Doyers Street in Chinatown. The location is used for everything from after hours karaoke sessions to an annual sale around the holiday season.They organize series of events that focus on food and invited Itinerant Gastronomy to participate in 2005. Rather than set up an evening (as the even then overused) pop-up idea, it was decided that there would be a meal for an individual that was necessary to food culture. They would be be able to invite one additional guest, but no one else would be able to attend. Ruth Reichl was the invited guest and she invited her creative director at Gourmet magazine, Richard Ferretti.

The meal was called Sine Qua Non after the nearly impossible to gain entry to subscription for the wine by the same name. The list is oversubscribed and they annually send out a a postcard that reads, “not this year” if there are no subscriptions available.