Rare is the evening in the tiny Gulf emirate of Kuwait when the roads are not packed with carloads of men on their way to a diwaniyya. So much so, that scarcely a night passes without some assemblage of male cohorts gathering in these establishments to engage in a lively discussion, or play an animated game of cards, or simply to enjoy each other’s warm company. It is within these diwaniyyat (sing. diwaniyya), or reception rooms, with their regular, almost choreographed performances of hospitality that unfold the dealings and transactions that are so vital to both family and community life in this modern rentier state. Unfortunately, as with much of literature in general on the guest room / guest house institution in the Middle East, there is little information that could accurately characterize the diwaniyyat as they exist within the social fabric of Kuwait. This paper fills that vacancy in the current scholarship by demonstrating the essential role that these enterprises play in a paternal state that seemingly provides for all of its citizenry’s needs. Consequently, this study is a unique examination of the guest room / guest house custom in the contemporary Middle East and a pioneering ethnographic investigation of the Kuwaiti diwaniyyat. While this presentation is informed by previous findings, albeit limited, on the guest room / guest house tradition in the Arab world and Central Asia, it relies on a merger of the author’s contextually-specific fieldwork in Kuwait and the analytical models of social capital in terms of its availability, accessibility, and malleability. Thus, this inquiry will attempt to resolve two conceptual issues as they pertain directly to the Kuwaiti diwaniyyat: (1) Why have the diwaniyyat not only persisted but prospered when researchers investigating analogous institutions have envisioned their demise in the wake of economic diversification and state centralization? (2) How do the Kuwaiti diwaniyyat adhere to, or deviate from, the related notions of symbolic capital, cycle of conversion, and value power as espoused by Bourdieu, Barth, and Antoun?