[NOTE: This is a second try. Hit it up when you see it so it gets on the frontpage and attracts participants.]
Based on the response to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3656646 and the suggestion by kojote (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3658023), I contacted the Couch Club (http://www.couch-club.org/).
I haven't been there myself yet but it is central, looks nice from the outside, plus they have a foosball table. Regular weekday hours are 2000-0100. The proprietor was open to welcoming our group an hour or two in advance if we agree to some "Mindestumsatz" (minimum consumption) as a group. She indicated 100-200 EUR but will come back with a definite number later. Their food offerings are sparse (pizza salami or vegetarian) but if we want, we can order more diverse pizze and other stuff and they'll coordinate with a partner. Internet access is not public but they will give us access if we need it for some presentation or so.
Which brings me to the next point: My own preference is that this not become too complicated. From my view, the primary goal is to meet new people with overlapping interests and let it roll from there. Talks and such, if demand and supply balance, can be organized later. Since we can have the place to ourselves for 1-2 hours, depending on what we decide, I suggest this "program":
1) meet and order food
2) while we wait for food, brief self-introductions
3) while we eat, max. 1-2 people can give a short talk
4) bar opens to the general public -> mingle/drink/foosball
Please indicate your preferred date below. If you send me an email at meetup@haija.net, I take that as indicating higher probability of attendance and your voice counts twice. If there is a sponsor among you who, just in case, can underwrite the shortfall to the minimum consumption (if any), please send me a mail too.
For suggestions and discussion, please leave a comment.
Thx.
In terms of suggestions: I'd be cool to see if we could make that a regular meet-up, e.g. every month.
For the first event, I'd recommend not to have any planned talks/presentation but to try it out and to see if we there'd be enough people to meet regularily.