Selfup Expands on 5th Avenue as Demand Grows for Shared Experiences

Selfup expands to a larger Midtown 5th Avenue venue with triple the capacity and an upgraded setup for cooking classes and team building events.

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, September 22, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — As demand grows for more social, hands-on experiences, Selfup has expanded its New York City operation to a new venue at 286 5th Avenue, 6th Floor, giving its public cooking classes, private celebrations and team building events significantly more room to grow.

The move is a substantial operational upgrade. The new 5th Avenue venue has approximately three times the capacity of Selfup’s previous New York location, along with a better-equipped kitchen, improved accessibility, a more polished interior and a setup designed to accommodate larger corporate and private groups more effectively.

Across both public classes and private events, Selfup’s chefs have noticed the same pattern repeatedly: guests may come for the cooking, but the interaction around making something together becomes a meaningful part of the experience.

Selfup chef Oliver (@chefolivertwist), who has taught both public and corporate classes, described it simply as “building community through food.”

The phrase resonated with the company because it captures something broader than cooking instruction: the activity itself gives people a reason to communicate, help each other and create something together.

People may arrive expecting to learn how to make fresh pasta, sushi or dinner from scratch, while corporate teams may arrive looking for a team activity and friends may come for a birthday, date night or simply something different to do in New York. Once people start cooking together, the dynamic changes naturally because there are tasks to divide, decisions to make and small problems to solve. Someone takes responsibility for the sauce, someone else rolls the pasta, someone asks for help and another person finds a way to fix a mistake. The interaction is built into the activity rather than added on top of it.

The idea is especially relevant for corporate groups. Traditional team building activities can sometimes feel structured around the goal of making colleagues interact, while cooking creates collaboration inside the experience itself. People divide responsibilities, make quick decisions, communicate, get creative, solve challenges and sometimes add a little healthy competition before eventually sitting down to dinner together. Cooking together creates engagement in a way that often feels more natural than conventional team building formats.

“Behind every dish is a team collaborating, communicating and solving problems together. That’s why cooking creates connection so naturally – and why people remember the experience,” said Gegham Artsruni, Founder of Selfup. That is increasingly how Selfup thinks about what happens in its kitchens: not just a cooking class, but a shared experience people actually remember.

Selfup has continued to see demand from companies and private organizers looking for participatory group experiences in New York, which helped drive the need for a larger venue and a more capable corporate-event setup. The new space allows the company to accommodate larger groups and a wider range of event formats, while the upgraded kitchen, more polished interior and improved layout provide a stronger setting for both public guests and private events.

Accessibility has also improved, and the central Manhattan location puts Selfup near Madison Square Park, Herald Square and major Midtown transit connections. For corporate planners and private-event organizers, those practical details matter because a successful event depends not only on the activity but also on whether guests can get there easily, participate comfortably and share the experience as a group.

Selfup offers public cooking classes, private cooking parties and corporate team building experiences in New York City, ranging from its popular Italian Dinner to more interactive group formats such as the Mystery Basket Challenge. Groups can choose from a broad mix of experiences including French, sushi and dumplings, traditional NYC-style pizza, Mexican Fiesta and Healthy Business Brunch, depending on the occasion and group.

The common thread is participation: guests are not simply watching somebody else prepare the evening for them; they are part of it. New York already has no shortage of places to eat, so Selfup’s role is different – creating an experience where the meal becomes the result of something the group did together.

As Selfup grows in New York, the company increasingly sees that combination of cooking and connection as central to both its public and private experiences. What began as an observation from inside the kitchen – “building community through food” – has become a simple way to describe what happens when people cook together: they participate, collaborate and share something they created as a group.

Selfup’s new New York City location is 286 5th Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10001.
Learn more at new-york.selfup.com

About Selfup

Selfup Cooking Classes was founded in Boston and later expanded to New York City, creating hands-on cooking experiences for individuals, couples, friends, private groups and corporate teams. Today, Selfup operates in both Boston and New York, offering public cooking classes, private cooking parties and corporate team building experiences centered around participation, shared cooking and enjoying the finished meal together.

Selfup has received Tripadvisor Travelers’ Choice recognition, placing it among the top 10% of things to do worldwide.
Learn more at selfup.com

Olga Ostrovskaya Bril
Selfup Cooking Classes
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