IdeaFestival, the annual gathering of national and international Big Thinkers who present cutting-edge ideas in science, the arts and community design, will be joined this year by several area restaurants for the first Ideas Night Out on Thursday, Oct. 2. Attendees will have the opportunity to mingle at dinner with some of the week’s speakers.

The participating restaurants are Down One Bourbon Bar. Harvest, Hillbilly Tea, Lilly’s, Mayan Cafe, MilkWood, Napa River Grill, Rye on Market and  Vincenzo’s.

Each restaurant will have a set three-course menu for the evening, along with a vegetarian option. The price of each restaurant’s meal is $55, not including drinks. Rye on Market is the only exception, with a price of $65.

According to a press release, “Ideas Night Out will be agenda-less and limitless…The evening will bring together professors, artists, activists, playwrights, journalists, authors, patient advocates, psychologists, diplomats, philosophers and number theorists, and that doesn’t include the diversity of attendees of the festival.

“The speakers have a vast range of expertise — you may wind up talking about beekeeping, farming, drawing, film, photography, consumerism, community, health care justice, geopolitics, glamour, neurobiology, moral cognition, metaphysics, animal rights, human nature, Kurt Vonnegut, liminal spaces, synesthesia, fractals, or something totally different.”

Go to the IdeaFestival website for a list of which speakers will be diner at which restaurant.