Where everybody knows your name, sort of

It’s always nice to be treated like “someone special,” and one of the easiest ways to do that is to become a regular customer, or simply a “regular,” at an eating establishment.

Notice that I did not use the word restaurant. This is not because restaurant is not an appropriate word to use in this context; rather, because the word is too limiting. Eating establishments can range from the French Laundry in California to the coffee cart on the corner that provides you with breakfast five days a week. It’s wherever you hang or hat, or tie on the feedbag. The point is, it’s a place where you and your dining preferences are a known quantity.

Now, I have never been to the French Laundry, or even to Per Se, which is a few blocks from my Manhattan home but is symbolically worlds away from where I live. But during various times in my corporate working life I have been a regular at several coffee carts around the city and it is a mostly pleasing experience.

There’s something comforting in having someone, even a complete stranger, know exactly what you crave first thing in the morning and before you can even say “good morning,” your coffee (milk and two sugars, please) and breakfast (buttered roll) are ready and handed to you in a brown paper sack, with a wad of napkins stuffed on the top to soak up the coffee that creeps through the tiny hole in the center of the plastic lid. You usually know nothing about this person, and they know nothing about you aside from your breakfast preferences. It’s a strange sort of symbiotic relationship that needs little work and creates mutual satisfaction with every mundane transaction.

And yet, there’s also something a bit unsettling about a complete stranger thinking he knows you so well that he can fill your order as he sees you approach the cart. How does he know that you are more in the mood for tea this morning, or maybe for a bagel or doughnut? How dare he presume to know exactly what you want every single weekday morning? What about those days when you have breakfast meetings and bypass the cart altogether? Does he have the right to feel insulted and short-changed, or does he take it in his stride and turn to the next regular’s order?

On the other hand, there was the Bagel Bakery in Burlington, Vermont, where I went for breakfast nearly every weekend for at least a few of my college years. The place was always packed (being the only place in town to get fresh bagels at the time) and yet I always seemed to get the same counterperson. Every single weekend we had the same exchange.

Me: “A sesame bagel with Muenster cheese, please.”
Counterperson: “Mustard or mayo with that?”
Me: “No thank you, just cheese.”

Gosh, wouldn’t you think that she would remember my order after the first few months?

But I digress.

Over the years there have been a few places in Manhattan that I frequented enough to feel that I was seen as a “regular.” One of the first was the Diamond Dairy Restaurant, a shabby sliver of a place high above one of the large jewelry exchanges on West 47th Street, the Diamond District of New York City. For many years I would bring friends there for lunch to share the experience of eating in a place that time seemed to have forgotten, while gazing down at millions of dollars worth of diamonds, gold, and other precious metals and stones. And for many years my server was Marie, a sitcom-ready wisecracking waitress who liked to guess what I was going to have for lunch (it was almost always a toss-up between cheese blintzes and stuffed peppers). I felt a real sense of loss when Marie no longer worked there, felt it again when the cooks changed and the food seemed different, and felt it a final time when I read last year that the place had finally gone out of business.

When my kids were in elementary school in Hell’s Kitchen, we had breakfast every Thursday morning at the original Amy’s Bread on Ninth Avenue and 46th Street. Yvonne always greeted us with a big smile, chatted up the girls, and expressed surprise when I changed my usual order from chocolate sourdough twist to cherry scone and back again. She gave us day-old (and still delicious) cookies, gave the girls tiny birthday cakes, and even told us that she was having a baby before she told her boss. Talk about trust!

These days I tend not to be too “regular” anywhere due to a combination of factors—less eating at restaurants, having coffee at home in the mornings instead of from a cart, and working in kitchens, which eliminates the need to purchase meals during the day. But there is one place where I feel known: the burger joint at the Parker Meridian Hotel on 57th Street. My younger daughter and I often have lunch at this (not-so-) hidden gem in the lobby of the hotel, and we are always greeted by the folks behind the counter. Although there is only counter service, our lunch is often brought to our table when it’s ready. They know that we like our fries hot out of the fryer, and they are happy to oblige. When Sofy was gluten free for a few years, they grabbed a paper plate (for her bunless burger) as we approached the counter. They even know me by name, even if it’s the wrong name: at the burger joint I am somehow known as Cheryl, and I am too polite, and too much time has gone by, for me to correct the accommodating staff.

Well, no place is perfect, even when you’re a regular.