>>I'm hoping, perhaps foolishly, that it's possible to achieve some sort of consensus rather than resorting to management by fiat.

After organizing a few of these, I'm firmly of the opinion that consensus on a restaurant is next to impossible. Trying to get 20 or 30 (or even 8) San Franciscans to agree on a restaurant is torture. Others who have organized such events have concurred with me privately.

For me, the most important thing is that we have a place where people can get together, have an affordable and pretty good meal, have conversation, and hang out with one another. There are so many good restaurants in the City - why get stuck in a big debate about which one we end up at?