Live dating shows, shared feasts for solo diners and “speed friending” nights are selling out at restaurants and bars around Melbourne as people delete dating apps and seek out physical moments to meet new people.

When Farah Sabet opened the Footscray wine bar, Bud of Love, last spring, she knew she wanted to share more than riesling and rosé with her customers.

“Talking to people in the area, they’d say, ‘I’m over online dating’ or ‘It’s really hard to make friends as an adult’,” she says.

Sabet bought a large communal table for the bar and began hosting regular events, such as trivia nights on Thursdays and monthly speed dating nights.

The first speed dating event sold out within two hours. Frances, a 27-year-old lawyer who attended the event, says she was drawn to it because she was weary of apps like Tinder and Bumble.

“You meet people you might not ordinarily swipe across on an app.” she says. “You open yourself up to new people. I walked out of there with a really warm feeling.”

Downloads of Tinder dropped 5 per cent in 2021, and subscriber numbers have been flat or declining for the past six quarters. The company, which launched in 2012, ran its first global marketing campaign this year to stem the losses.

Joey Kellock, whose Thornbury restaurant 1800 Lasagne has held seven speed dating afternoons in the past year, firmly believes we’re seeing an app backlash.

“There’s nothing like that real connection: to look into the eyes of somebody and chat, rather than wasting time ‘connecting’ on a dating app,” he says.

The truly adventurous might attend Human Love Quest, a live version of an old-fashioned TV dating show, with three contestants on stage in front of an audience at Brunswick Ballroom. The events regularly sell out as people seek a tongue-in-cheek antidote to the sometimes cut-throat world of Super Likes and endless online chat.

But more venues are hosting social events not focused on romance, including Free to Mingle, a big long-table feast last month, where 75 guests were encouraged to show up solo by hosts Free to Feed with the aim of making friends.

The people who attended were mothers feeling isolated, people new to Melbourne, new arrivals to Australia and people just out of relationships.

“We’re all craving this social connection but we’re just not sure where to go for it,” says organiser Monica Knoll.

One quarter of Australian adults experienced loneliness in 2018, according to a Swinburne University and Australian Psychological Society survey. A 2020 survey that included people both in and out of lockdown in Australia showed those who could freely socialise felt only slightly less lonely (4 per cent) than those stuck at home.

At the sell-out Free to Mingle event, people arrived to an open bar and name tags where you could also write your favourite conversation topics, with facilitators dotted around the room to help break the ice. By the end of the night, there was a conga line.

“We weren’t needed at all,” says Knoll. “People really came with the intention of meeting new people.

“In a way, everyone was an outsider … It takes away some of that fear.”

At Bud of Love, speed dating ends with all 14 attendees sitting on the communal table talking over glasses of wine.

For Frances, this was the highlight of attending the night. “It doesn’t always have to be [about] meeting someone that you have a romantic connection with, it can be a connection nonetheless,” she says.

One group of western suburbs locals who met on the communal table now regularly make plans as friends, including attending one person’s upcoming DJ set.

Sabet believes this part of the event makes it different to other speed dating nights. “There’s engineers, designers, DJs, artists. These people would not normally have connected if it was online.”

1800 Lasagne’s events are on hold for now, but will return next year. Bud of Love has upped its schedule from monthly to fortnightly, with plans for queer speed dating under way, and Free to Feed is looking at how to replicate the success of Free to Mingle.